A German court on Monday approved the extradition of an Iranian diplomat accused of running a European-wide network of spies which planned to bomb an Iranian opposition rally.
The court approved the European arrest warrant of Asdollah Assadi, ruling that diplomatic immunity does not apply him as he as was outside his host nation.
Assadi is a diplomat based in Vienna, Austria, but was arrested in the German city of Aschaffenburg.
“The wanted man cannot cite diplomatic immunity because he was on a several day holiday trip outside his host state Austria and not travelling between his host country and the state that dispatched him,” the superior regional court in Bamberg said.
Assadi was arrested in Germany in June for orchestrating a bomb plot against an opposition rally in Paris and will be extradited to Belgium to face trial.
German prosecutors say Assadi, believed to be an intelligence agent, ordered a couple to attack the rally and had handed them the explosives at a meeting in June in Luxembourg.
The plot to bomb a rally of the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) on June 30 was foiled after half-a-kilo of explosives and a detonator were seized from the married couple, identified as Amir S. and Nasimeh N. in Belgium.
Authorities requested the extradition of an accomplice of the couple, identified as Merhad A., from Paris where he was arrested.
All three of the accused plotters are Belgian nationals of Iranian origin.
Several high profile guests attended the rally to urge regime change in Iran. They included Unites States President Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Guiliani and former House of Representatives speaker Newt Gingrich.
Source » thenational