Saudi Press

Saudi Arabia and the world
Friday, Aug 08, 2025

Belgium reveals aid worker held for months in Iran

Belgium reveals aid worker held for months in Iran

Iran has held Belgian aid worker Olivier Vandecasteele in isolation in jail for five months and his health is deteriorating, his friend has said.

News of his plight emerged on Tuesday when the justice minister revealed a Belgian citizen was accused of spying.

Belgian MPs are due to decide on Wednesday whether to back a law allowing prisoner exchanges with Iran.

"What I want is Olivier free, I don't care how it's done," his friend Olivier Van Steirtegem told the BBC.

While the Belgian government has not linked Vandecasteele's case to the proposed treaty with Iran, it came to light amid increasing political opposition to the plan to legalise prisoner swaps.

Several MPs and a group of former judges have warned that the treaty could set a dangerous precedent by encouraging Iran and other states to take innocent prisoners, with the aim of using them as a bargaining tool.

Members of the dissident Iranian community protested in Brussels on Tuesday against the plan.

Iran has pressed Belgium to release its alleged top intelligence official in Europe, Assadollah Assadi, who was given a 20 year jail sentence in Antwerp last year for plotting to bomb a rally by an exiled Iranian opposition group.

Iran holds a number of European citizens in its prisons, including Brussels university lecturer Prof Ahmadreza Djalali, who has dual Iranian-Swedish citizenship. An emergency medicine specialist, he was arrested during a business trip in 2016 and sentenced to death the following year after what human rights groups say was a grossly unfair trial on a charge of spying.

The planned prisoner exchange treaty was initially assumed to involve Prof Djalali, until news broke of the Vandecasteele case.

Ahead of a vote in parliament on Wednesday, Justice Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne said it was Belgium's "moral duty" to help Vandecasteele and return innocent Belgians to their families. "I can't say any more about it, also on the family's request... people's lives are at stake," he said.

For several years Olivier Vandecasteele ran operations in Iran for the Norwegian Refugee Council


A close friend for over 20 years, Olivier Van Steirtegem told the BBC that the aid worker was arrested by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and taken to Tehran's notorious Evin prison, where he has been allowed only two brief visits by the ambassador since he was arrested in February.

Vandecasteele, 41, had previously worked in Iran as country director for the Norwegian Refugee Council as well as other agencies, working closely with the Afghan community after working in Kabul. "He's purely humanitarian, not political... an innocent guy in jail," he said.

His friend said he had returned to Tehran in February to close down his apartment against Belgian government advice: "We need to put ourselves in his shoes: he was living there for five or six years - his life was there. He had to go back."

Information has been hard to come by but his friend said there was no bed or furniture in his cell and his health was deteriorating: "He's eating nothing but potatoes, lentils and sugar; he's lost 15kg and has an infection. The Iranians said he'd seen a doctor but the doctor couldn't speak English."

Earlier this year a British-Iranian national, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, was released almost six years after she was arrested on spying charges while visiting Iran with her daughter. She too was held in Evin prison. Iran freed her after months of negotiations and after the UK paid a historic £400m debt.

Mr Van Steirtegem said he was in daily contact with his friend's family: "Anyone in Europe or the UK can understand being in this situation - he's done nothing wrong and is the object of a policy of blackmail," he said.

While he understood objections to the treaty in parliament, it was the only hope for Vandecasteele being released any time soon.

Among the MPs to object to a deal, Flemish Nationalist Peter de Roover said it signalled to "rogue states" that Belgians could be used as bargaining chips without doing anything wrong.

Newsletter

Related Articles

Saudi Press
0:00
0:00
Close
British Labour Government Utilizes Counter-Terrorism Tools for Social Media Monitoring Against Legitimate Critics
WhatsApp Deletes 6.8 Million Scam Accounts Amid Rising Global Fraud
Nine people have been hospitalized and dozens of salmonella cases have been reported after an outbreak of infections linked to certain brands of pistachios and pistachio-containing products, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada
Texas Residents Face Water Restrictions While AI Data Centers Consume Millions of Gallons
Tariffs, AI, and the Shifting U.S. Macro Landscape: Navigating a New Economic Regime
India Rejects U.S. Tariff Threat, Defends Russian Oil Purchases
United States Establishes Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and Digital Asset Stockpile
Thousands of Private ChatGPT Conversations Accidentally Indexed by Google
China Tightens Mineral Controls, Curtailing Critical Inputs for Western Defence Contractors
OpenAI’s Bold Bet: Teaching AI to Think, Not Just Chat
BP’s Largest Oil and Gas Find in 25 Years Uncovered Offshore Brazil
JPMorgan and Coinbase Unveil Partnership to Let Chase Cardholders Buy Crypto Directly
British Tourist Dies Following Hair Transplant in Turkey, Police Investigate
WhatsApp Users Targeted in New Scam Involving Account Takeovers
Trump Deploys Nuclear Submarines After Threats from Former Russian President Medvedev
Germany’s Economic Breakdown and the Return of Militarization: From Industrial Collapse to a New Offensive Strategy
IMF Upgrades Global Growth Forecast as Weaker Dollar Supports Outlook
Politics is a good business: Barack Obama’s Reported Net Worth Growth, 1990–2025
"Crazy Thing": OpenAI's Sam Altman Warns Of AI Voice Fraud Crisis In Banking
Japanese Prime Minister Vows to Stay After Coalition Loses Upper House Majority
President Trump Diagnosed with Chronic Venous Insufficiency After Leg Swelling
Man Dies After Being Pulled Into MRI Machine Due to Metal Chain in New York Clinic
FIFA Pressured to Rethink World Cup Calendar Due to Climate Change
"Can You Hit Moscow?" Trump Asked Zelensky To Make Putin "Feel The Pain"
Nvidia Becomes World’s First Four‑Trillion‑Dollar Company Amid AI Boom
Iranian President Reportedly Injured During Israeli Strike on Secret Facility
Kurdistan Workers Party Takes Symbolic Step Towards Peace in Northern Iraq
BRICS Expands Membership with Indonesia and Ten New Partner Countries
Elon Musk Founds a Party Following a Poll on X: "You Wanted It – You Got It!"
AI Raises Alarms Over Long-Term Job Security
Saudi Arabia Maintains Ties with Iran Despite Israel Conflict
Russia Formally Recognizes Taliban Government in Afghanistan
Mediators Edge Closer to Israel-Hamas Ceasefire Agreement
Emirates Airline Expands Market Share with New $20 Million Campaign
House Oversight Committee Subpoenas Former Jill Biden Aide Amid Investigation into Alleged Concealment of President Biden's Cognitive Health
Amazon Reaches Major Automation Milestone with Over One Million Robots
Meta Announces Formation of Ambitious AI Unit, Meta Superintelligence Labs
China Unveils Miniature Insect-Like Surveillance Drone
Marc Marquez Claims Victory at Dutch Grand Prix Amidst Family Misfortune
Iran Executes Alleged Israeli Spies and Arrests Hundreds Amid Post-War Crackdown
Trump Asserts Readiness for Further Strikes on Iran Amid Nuclear Tensions
Iran's Parliament Votes to Suspend Cooperation with Nuclear Watchdog
Trump Announces Upcoming US-Iran Meeting Amid Controversial Airstrikes
Trump Moves to Reshape Middle East Following Israel-Iran Conflict
NATO Leaders Endorse Plan for Increased Defence Spending
U.S. Crude Oil Prices Drop Below $65 Amid Market Volatility
Explosions Rock Doha as Iranian Missiles Target Qatar
“You Have 12 Hours to Flee”: Israeli Threat Campaign Targets Surviving Iranian Officials
Oman Set to Introduce Personal Income Tax, First in Gulf
Germany and Italy Under Pressure to Repatriate $245bn of Gold from US Vaults
×