The two Austrian citizens released by Iran landed in Belgium on Saturday night. At the military airport of Melsbroek near Brussels, the Viennese IT expert Kamran Ghaderi and the secretary general of the Austro-Iranian Society, Massud Mossaheb, were received by the Belgian foreign minister and Austrian and Danish diplomats.
A Dane who had also been released was also on board the plane that took them back to the EU from Oman. The two Austrian-Iranian dual nationals had been sentenced to years in prison for alleged espionage. As a result, Ghaderi had been in prison in Tehran since 2016. Mossaheb was arrested in early 2019 while visiting Tehran. According to the State Department, the two had spent 2,709 and 1,586 days in Iranian detention. According to Belgian sources, the Danish prisoner was arrested last November on the sidelines of a “rally for women’s rights”. His name was not disclosed.
Prisoner exchange: criticism of “dirty deal”
The releases are part of an exchange with Tehran: in return, an Iranian diplomat convicted of terrorism in Belgium was released. Assadollah Assadi was arrested in Germany in July 2018 and sentenced to 20 years in prison in Antwerp in 2021 for terrorist murders of exiled Iranians. This in turn drew criticism from human rights activists. German activist Düzen Tekkal spoke of a “dirty deal” at the end of May. Among other things, there are fears that the government in Tehran could in the future use Western prisoners as a bargaining chip with Western countries.
Source: Krone
I am Ida Scott, a journalist and content author with a passion for uncovering the truth. I have been writing professionally for Today Times Live since 2020 and specialize in political news. My career began when I was just 17; I had already developed a knack for research and an eye for detail which made me stand out from my peers.
