The Belgian court also found three accomplices of Mr. Assadi was convicted, all dual citizens of Iran and Belgium, who were sentenced to 15 to 18 years in prison and deprived of their Belgian citizenship. All three are believed to be agents of the Iranian intelligence ministry, prosecutors said.
The head of the Belgian state security service, Jaak Raes, said in a letter to prosecutors that intelligence officials had determined that the planned bombing was a state sanctioning operation, which was approved by Tehran.
A spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry condemned the verdict and the detention and sentencing of Mr. Assadi called illegal under international law. “Iran reserves the right to use legal and diplomatic means to enforce the rights of Assadollah Assadi and to hold governments accountable for violating their international obligations,” said spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh, according to the semi-official Fars News Agency. said.
Mr. Assadi was linked to the Iranian mission in Austria when he provided explosives for the planned attack. Prosecutors say he produced a pound of explosive triacetone triperoxide, or TATP, and an igniter from Iran to Vienna in his luggage and then drove to Luxembourg. There, he handed it over to an Iranian-Belgian couple in a Pizza Hut on June 30, 2018. Mr. Assadi was arrested at a service station in Germany, where he did not have diplomatic immunity, when he drove back to Austria.
The couple Amir Saadouni (40) and his wife, Nassimeh Naami (36), obtained political asylum and later citizenship in Belgium. They were arrested when they were driving from Antwerp to Paris on the day of the protest. The fourth accused, Mehrdad Arefani (57), was an accomplice of Mr. Assadi who was to accompany the couple during the protest.
Iran has in the past been accused of trying to eliminate opponents abroad. Denmark is calling for sanctions against Iran for planning another assassination in 2018.
Mr. Assadi was in contact with Iranian agents across Europe, according to documents provided to Belgian prosecutors by police in Germany and the Netherlands, according to the Flemish broadcaster, VRT. The documents contain a notebook found in his car and contain numerous receipts for payments to people identified only by aliases.