A Belgian court sentenced an Iranian diplomat on Thursday for plotting the thwarted 2018 bombing of an opposition rally outside Paris.

Assadollah was convicted of involvement in a terrorist group, with the court in Antwerp rejecting his claim of diplomatic immunity.

He was accredited as a diplomat at the Iranian embassy in Vienna at the time of the crime.

The three other defendants in the case were handed sentences of up to 18 years in prison for the plan to use explosives at an event held by an exiled opposition Iranian group and attended by thousands of people near Paris in 2018.

The June 30, 2018 gathering in Villepinte, near Paris, included senior leaders of the exiled National Council of Resistance in Iran (NCRI) and some high-profile supporters including former US President Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani.

The diplomat was charged with “attempted murders of a terrorist nature” and “taking part in the activity of a terrorist group”.

Belgian-Iranian couple Nasimeh Naami, 36, and Amir Saadouni, 40, accepted from Assadi a half-kilo of TATP explosives and a detonator.

Naami received an 18-year sentence and Saadouni 15 years.

NAN