City Council Reports $400M Financial Irregularities In Tehran Municipality

Asadollah Assadi, a former attaché at the Iranian embassy in Austria who was convicted of plotting to bomb a gathering of the exiled opposition group Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK) near Paris on June 30, 2018, was released and arrived in Tehran on Friday.

Belgian aid worker Olivier Vandecasteele, who was detained in 2022 and sentenced to 40 years in prison and 74 lashes for alleged “spying and cooperation with the United States, money laundering and smuggling $500,000 out of Iran,” was also released as part of the deal.

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The Belgian Parliament ratified the controversial prisoner swap treaty with Iran on July 20, but a temporary ban on the extradition of the convicted diplomat was announced by the Brussels Court of Appeal late in July following numerous complaints.

The critics of the accord warned that such a treaty would effectively establish Belgium as a “sanctuary country” for terrorist operations, and a haven for Iranian intelligence services to maintain a European command center. In March, Belgium's Constitutional Court rejected a request to annul a prisoner exchange treaty with the Islamic Republic paving the ground for the release of the diplomat.

Iranians and human rights activists feel betrayed and disappointed that Belgium released Assadi after huge rallies and and dozens of officials warning against such an act. Following his release, Iranian expatriate communities held protests in several cities to denounce Belgium's move to free the regime's diplomat.

Rights group Amnesty International said in a statement that "By transferring Assadollah Assadi to Iran, the Belgium government has contributed to a climate of impunity for the extraterritorial targeting of Iranian dissidents for extrajudicial execution, torture, and other ill-treatment, and undermined the rights of victims to justice, reparations and guarantee non-recurrence of violations."

In an interview with Iran International on Friday evening, Darya Safai, an Iranian-born member of the Belgian Parliament, described the day as “a black and bitter day for impunity and injustice for Iran and the world.”

“The Islamic Republic of Iran takes innocent people as hostages, blackmails, plans terror attacks on European soil, kills brave freedom fighters in Iran and yet the world continues to grovel and do as they demand,” she said, adding that “This regime will never stop capturing victims if it is rewarded in this way without a problem.”

According to the lawmaker, the Belgian government was supposed to inform the plaintiffs in Assadi's case before releasing him, but it did not do so.

Alireza Akhondi, an Iranian-born member of the Swedish parliament who has been very active in defending the ‘Women, Life, Liberty’ movement, also told Iran International that it is a shameful day in history.

He mentioned several names of the iconic martyrs of the uprising who have lost their lives in the path of Iran’s freedom, saying that such an event proves that the opposition should expand its efforts to make the world stand against this regime, which has been using the hostage-taking tactic for 44 years.

Reacting to the release of Assadi, exiled Prince Reza Pahlavi said that exchanging hostages for the regime’s terrorists “will not only fail to end the Islamic Republic’s hostage taking, but it will also encourage the regime to take further hostages and carry out further acts of terrorism.”

Pahlavi added that during his meetings with European lawmakers and politicians, he made it clear that the only solution lies in coordinated action from a position of strength. He called on world countries to “recall ambassadors from Tehran and expel the regime's ambassadors; Put the IRGC on the list of terrorist organizations; Help the people of Iran achieve the freedom and democracy that they deserve and are sacrificing for.”

The National Council of Resistance of Iran, an organization parallel to MEK and led by its leader Maryam Rajavi, which had mounted a fierce campaign against the deal, issued a statement following the prisoner swap, condemning it as a shameful appeasement with the Islamic Republic’s policy of hostage taking.

“The release of the terrorist, who organized and commanded the biggest criminal act in Europe after the Second World War, by violating the Court’s order, is a shameful ransom for terrorism and hostage-taking. This will embolden the religious fascism ruling Iran to continue its crimes in Iran through repression and regional and international terrorism,” read their statement.

The group added that “The release of this terrorist diplomat takes place while the Constitutional Court had clearly stated in its judgment that the Belgian government should inform the victims before transferring the convicts so that they have the opportunity to once again take the issue to court.”

The Islamic Republic has a long history of hostage diplomacy, which started soon after the establishment of the regime, with taking hostage American diplomats and embassy staff in 1979 for 444 days. UN experts and international human rights organizations say that the Islamic Republic takes foreigners hostage to extract concessions from the West.

According to information obtained by Iran International, the Islamic Republic has gained the permits for the establishment of the company in exchange for its support for Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia' Al Sudani to win the office. 

The Muhandis General Company (Sharakat al-Muhandis al-Amma) takes its name from Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the former deputy commander of Iran-backed Shiite militia Hashd al-Shaabi -- also known as the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) -- and a close comrade of former IRGC’s extraterritorial Quds force commander Qasem Soleimani. They were killed together in January 2020 by a US drone strike.

Muhandis was himself a graduate of civil engineering and in the late 1970s joined the Islamic Dawa Party, which fiercely opposed the Baathist government of Iraqi autocrat Saddam Hussein and led an insurgency against him during the Iran-Iraq war.

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According to our sources, the establishment of the company and its growing sway in Iraq’s construction projects has led to the opposition of the Iraqi army and even the Shiite leaders in Najaf. Influential Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr -- who seeks to curb the influence of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Iraqi politics – has once and again called against an Iranian-linked government or a subordinate one in Baghdad.

The Muhandis company seeks to become the Iraqi version of Khatam al-Anbiya Construction Headquarters, IRGC’s engineering and contracting arm. Khatam al-Anbiya Construction Headquarter is one of Iran's largest contractors in industrial and development projects. The IRGC business conglomerate was created during the 1980–1988 Iran–Iraq War to help rebuild the country and has diversified over the years into companies dealing with mechanical engineering, energy, mining, and defense. 

Earlier in May, London-based pan-Arab website Al-Araby Al-Jadeed reported that Al-Muhandis company is increasing its work in the field of contracting and infrastructure in the private and public sector through several projects in the capital Baghdad and several other cities, describing it as the Islamic Republic’s effort to create “a parallel state” inside Iraq.

The report claimed that via its growing network, the company aims to provide financial resources to support Hashd al-Shaabi and its affiliated armed factions.

“Some see the establishment of the company as an attempt to replicate the experience of the Revolutionary Guard in Iran, aimed at controlling economic and commercial sectors in Iraq, towards building a parallel economy, under the management of the Popular Mobilization Forces, which gives the group financial independence,” claimed the report.

According to the report, the company was established in November 2022 with a capital of 100 billion dinars ($68.5 million) and it is exempt from paying any taxes.

In March, US-based think-tank The Washington Institute for Near East Policy reported that the company launched its inaugural project -- a commitment to plant one million trees in a large parcel of government-provided land in al-Muthanna province. It said: “The launch event was attended by both PMF chairman Faleh al-Fayyad, a US-designated human rights abuser, and PMF chief of staff Abdul-Aziz al-Mohammadawi (aka Abu Fadak), a US-designated terrorist.”

The think-tank added that Iraqi 'resistance' groups – affiliated with the Islamic Republic -- have long sought a company “with preferential access to lucrative state contracts, and the Sudani government is finally providing them after years of opposition.”

Gen. Hossein Daqiqi (Daghighi), top advisor to IRGC’s chief commander, during a speech Thursday evening said that the US not only has given up on the military option but might also relinquish sanctions and economic pressure soon against the Islamic Republic.

“The military option has been taken off the table by the Americans, but economic and cultural pressures are still active, although the economic option is also on its way out,” Daqiqi said, “because they believe that sanctions have not been effective.”

The IRGC official also said that “If a country has all the military hardware in the world, but its leader is a coward like Trump, it won’t be able to accomplish anything.” He added that in contrast, Islamic Republic’s leader Ali Khamenei ordered a missile strike against US bases in Iraq after the killing of IRGC’s Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad by a US air strike.

US President Joe Biden and his senior officials have reiterated several times in recent months that all options are on the table not to allow Tehran to possess nuclear weapons, and they have designated more companies and individuals for violating US sanctions.

Congressional and other critics of President Biden’s Iran policy say the administration has not rigorously implemented oil export sanctions imposed by former President Donald Trump when he withdrew from the JCPOA nuclear deal in 2018.

Iran began to increase clandestine oil shipments to China at the end of 2020 as Biden won the presidential election and signaled his readiness to overturn Trump’s decision and revive the JCPOA.

CNN quoted experts as saying that as cooperation between the two countries deepens, the Caspian Sea route is being used to move drones, bullets, and mortar shells that the Russian government has purchased from Iran to use in Ukraine.

“Tracking data shows that vessels in the region are increasingly going dark – suggesting growing intent to obfuscate the movement of goods,” the US news channel claims.

Data from Lloyd's List Intelligence revealed a spike in Caspian vessel tracking gaps in September last year.

The US and Ukrainian governments claim Moscow acquired drones from Tehran last summer. The use of Iranian drones by Russia increased in the fall, including against critical energy infrastructure in Ukraine.

It is unlikely that Ukraine's Western allies could stop such arms deliveries, analysts told CNN.

“There is no risk to Iranian exports in the Caspian Sea because of the bordering countries – they don’t have the capability or motive to interdict in these sorts of exchanges,” said Martin Kelly, lead intelligence analyst at security company EOS Risk Group.

Back in April, The Wall Street Journal reported that Iran has shipped over 300,000 artillery shells and about a million rounds of ammunition to Russia using cargo ships in the Caspian Sea; something that Iran denied saying That Tehran is opposed to war and supports a ceasefire and peace in Ukraine.

Officials in the Middle East had told the WSJ that the last shipment of weapons to Russia crossed the Caspian Sea aboard the 460-foot Russian cargo ship Rasul Gamzatov in early March. The company owning the vessel had already been sanctioned by the US.

Oman’s foreign ministry released a statement on Friday that reads “In compliance with the directives of His Majesty Sultan Haitham bin Tarik, to fulfill the requests of the Iranian and Belgian governments to assist in resolving the issue of detained citizens in both countries, the Omani efforts have resulted in an agreement between the two sides for a mutual exchange deal.”

Without naming the prisoners, the ministry added that the individuals who were released have been transported from Tehran and Brussels to Muscat today, Friday, May 26, 2023, in preparation for their return to their respective countries.

Former diplomat Asadollah Assadi, convicted in plot to bomb an Iranian exiled group event in France, arrived in Tehran on Friday afternoon. Upon arrival, he received a hero's welcome by government spokesman Ali Bahadori Jahromi and Kazem Gharibabadi, the deputy head of the Judiciary who is also secretary of the High Council for Human Rights as well as several other officials.

Earlier in the day, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo announced in a statement that aid worker Olivier Vandecasteele had been freed and will arrive in Brussels within a few hours.

De Croosaid in a video statement, "If everything goes as planned, he will be with us tonight, finally free," adding that he had undergone medical assessment and was in the care of Belgian military and diplomatic staff.

“Olivier spent 455 days in prison in Tehran. In unbearable conditions. Innocent,” De Croo said, adding: “Olivier Vandecasteele’s return to Belgium is a relief. A relief for his family, friends and colleagues.”

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Thanking the Sultanate of Oman for “its positive efforts in this direction,” Iran’s foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said in a Persian post on his Twitter account that “Mr. Assadollah Assadi, the innocent diplomat of our country, who was illegally detained in Germany and Belgium for more than two years against international law, is now on his way back to his homeland and will soon enter our beloved Iran.”

Assadi, 50, a former attaché at the Iranian embassy in Austria, was convicted of plotting to bomb a gathering of the exiled opposition group Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK) near Paris on June 30, 2018. The only Iranian diplomat ever brought to trial in Europe for direct involvement in terrorism was arrested in Germany, where he did not enjoy diplomatic immunity, while he was on holiday. German authorities later extradited Assadi to Belgium.

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Iran's Foreign Ministry Spokesman Nasser Kanani issued a statement, saying that Assadi will return to the country after "five years in captivity," claiming that Assadi had been "taken hostage" during a plot designed by the Israeli regime and cooperation of some European intelligence services.

"The Zionist-American 'big lie' scenario went on stage with the aim of creating a crisis in relations between Iran and Europe and this plot happened right after the US withdrew from the nuclear deal with Iran," he said.

However, the Islamic Republic has a long history of hostage diplomacy, which started soon after the establishment of the regime with taking hostage American diplomats and embassy staff. UN experts and international human rights organizations say that the Islamic Republic takes foreigners hostage to extract concessions from the West.

The Islamic Republic’s judiciary sentenced Vandecasteele, who was detained in 2022, to 40 years in prison and 74 lashes for alleged “spying and cooperation with the United States, money laundering and smuggling $500,000 out of Iran.”

Vandecasteele, now 42, has served in various international humanitarian organizations since at least 2006, including, Médecins du Monde, Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), and Relief International. He worked in Iran for humanitarian organizations for more than six years and left the country. Later, he was lured back in a honey trap plot and was detained in February 2022.

The Belgian Parliament ratified a controversial prisoner swap treaty with Iran on July 20, but a temporary ban on the extradition of the convicted diplomat was announced by the Brussels Court of Appeal late in July following numerous complaints. The critics of the accord warned that such a treaty would effectively establish Belgium as a “sanctuary country” for terrorist operations, and a haven for Iranian intelligence services to maintain a European command center.

In March, Belgium's Constitutional Court rejected a request to annul a prisoner exchange treaty with the Islamic Republic paving the ground for the release of the diplomat.