Belgian aid worker jailed in Iran is freed after prisoner swap deal
Headline from KVIA El Paso
By Mostafa Salem, Catherine Nicholls and James Frater, CNN (CNN) — A Belgian aid worker who was imprisoned in Iran for more than a year has been freed after the Gulf state of Oman said it had facilitated a prisoner swap deal.
KVIA El Paso's own description from its feed. We collect headlines and these descriptions, not full articles; read the original reporting below.
Prisoner exchange frees Olivier Vandecasteele after 15 months in exchange for Assadollah Assadi, who handed off explosives for use at an Iranian opposition rally outside Paris
By Mostafa Salem, Catherine Nicholls and James Frater, CNN (CNN) — A Belgian aid worker who was imprisoned in Iran for more than a year has been freed after the Gulf state of Oman said it had facilitated a prisoner swap deal.
Iran freed Belgian aid worker Olivier Vandecasteele after almost 15 months in custody on Friday, in a prisoner exchange for an Iranian diplomat convicted of terrorism. Belgium's Prime Minister Alexander de Croo said the 42-year-old had arrived in Oman and added: "If all goes to plan, he'll be with u…
Belgium and Iran exchanged prisoners on Friday in a controversial move that saw an Iranian diplomat convicted of attempting to bomb exiles in France bedecked in flowers on his return to Tehran while an aid worker was heading back to Brussels.
The aid worker, Olivier Vandecasteele, had been sentenced to 40 years in prison for spying. The former diplomat was convicted of plotting a 2018 bomb attack.
In a deal brokered by Oman, Tehran freed a Belgian aid worker convicted of spying in return for a diplomat jailed for plotting a bomb attack in France. The targets of the thwarted terror attack were Iranian exiles.
