A German court said Monday it gave the green light for the extradition of an Iranian diplomat wanted in Belgium on suspicion he was part of a failed plot to bomb an Iranian opposition rally near Paris.
Vienna-based Assadollah Assadi was apprehended in July near the German city of Aschaffenburg on a European warrant alleging his involvement in the plot to bomb the June 30 rally. His arrest came after a couple with Iranian roots was stopped in Belgium and authorities reported finding powerful explosives in their car.
"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 Bamberg state court said in its ruling.
The suspected plan to target a gathering of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) in a Paris suburb came to light a few days after the June 30 event.
Bamberg prosecutors are now reviewing the decision and it is not yet clear when the extradition might move ahead, spokesman Matthias Huber said.
The arrest sparked a number of diplomatic protests, with the Austrian Foreign Ministry summoning the Iranian Ambassador in Vienna, and the Iranian Foreign Ministry summoning envoys from France, Germany and Belgium.
Following his arrest, Germany charged Assadi with activity as a foreign agent and conspiracy to commit murder, alleging that he contacted the couple in Belgium to attack an annual meeting of an exiled Iranian opposition group in Villepinte, near Paris.
They allege he gave the Antwerp-based couple a device containing 500 grams of the explosive TATP during a meeting in Luxembourg in late June.
Assadi, who has been registered as a diplomat at the Iranian Embassy in Vienna since 2014, was a member of the Iranian intelligence service "Ministry of Intelligence and Security," whose tasks "primarily include the intensive observation and combating of opposition groups inside and outside of Iran," according to German prosecutors.
Belgian authorities also accuse Assadi of being part of the alleged plot reportedly aimed at setting off explosives at a huge annual rally of the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq group, or MEK, in neighboring France, and want him extradited.
German prosecutors have said their investigation wouldn't hinder Belgium's extradition request for the suspect.
The MEK is an exiled Iranian opposition group based near Paris with some members elsewhere, in particular Albania. The formerly armed group was removed from EU and US terrorism lists several years ago after denouncing violence and getting Western politicians to lobby on its behalf.
