TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh condemned the Belgian court's issuing a 20-year prison sentence for diplomat Asadollah Asadi, stressing that the decision has been made under the influence of the MKO terrorist outfit.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran strongly condemns the announcement of the Belgian Court of Antwerp to issue a 20-year prison sentence for Asadi,” Khatibzadeh said on Thursday in reaction to the Belgian Court’s ruling on Iranian diplomat Asadollah Asadi, adding, “Unfortunately, Belgium and some European countries, under the influence of the machination of the Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) terrorist group, have committed such an illegal and unjustifiable act.”

He went on to say that as Iran has stated several times, all stages of Asadi's detention, the judicial process, the issuance of the recent sentence are illegal and in flagrant violation of international law, particularly the provisions of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.

“Therefore, they [Europeans] should be held accountable for the gross violations of the rights of the Iranian diplomat, including the inhumane conditions that he faced while in detention in Germany and Belgium,” Khatibzadeh noted.

The spokesman emphasized that Iran reserves the right to employ all possible legal and diplomatic means to exercise the rights of Asadollah Asadi and to hold accountable governments that have violated their international obligations.

Asadi who served as the third secretary of the Iranian Embassy in Austria was arrested in Germany in 2018 and was extradited to Belgium. He is accused of allegedly planning the bombing and providing the explosives to an Iranian couple from Brussels.

Iran has always denied the allegations against its diplomat and in July 2018 summoned the French and Belgian ambassadors and Germany's chargé d'affaires in protest at his arrest in Germany.

In a relevant statement in October 2020, the Iranian embassy in Belgium dismissed the western media allegations against the country’s diplomat, Asadollah Asadi, as baseless and ridiculous, warning of third party attempts to distort relations between Tehran and Europe.

Reuters had in early October quoted police documents as claiming that Asadi, who is allegedly charged in Belgium with planning to bomb a meeting of Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO, also known as the MEK, PMOI and NCRI) terrorist group in France, had warned authorities of possible retaliation by unidentified groups if he is found guilty.

“The Iranian diplomat has rejected the allegations and stressed that he has never raised any threats against Belgium. The case’s lawyer has also dismissed allegations of threatening,” the Iranian embassy said in a statement.

It added that the western media claims that Asadi has threatened Belgium are “ridiculous”, warning that certain media outlets aim to destroy relations between Iran and Europe.

The MKO is listed as a terrorist organization by much of the international community. Its members fled Iran in 1986 for Iraq, where they received support from then dictator Saddam Hussein.

The notorious outfit has carried out numerous attacks against Iranian civilians and government officials for several decades.

In 2012, the US State Department removed the MKO from its list of designated terrorist organizations under intense lobbying by groups associated to Saudi Arabia and other regimes adversarial to Iran.

A few years ago, MKO members were relocated from their Camp Ashraf in Iraq’s Diyala Province to Camp Hurriyet (Camp Liberty), a former US military base in Baghdad, and were later sent to Albania.

Those members, who have managed to escape, have revealed MKO's scandalous means of access to money, almost exclusively coming from Saudi Arabia.

The MKO terrorist group has openly specified targets as martyred Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, who commanded the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), and Iranian Judiciary Chief Seyed Ebrahim Rayeesi.

The terrorist organization said it would “welcome” their assassination, adding that it desired for the ranking officials to “join” Asadollah Lajevardi, Tehran’s former chief prosecutor, and Ali Sayyad-Shirazi, a former commander of the Iranian Army’s Ground Forces during Iraq’s 1980-88 war against Iran, who have both been assassinated.

Earlier in June 2019, a leaked audio of a phone conversation between two members of MKO, revealed Saudi regime has colluded with the MKO elements to frame Iran for the tanker attacks in the Persian Gulf.

In the audio, Shahram Fakhteh, an official member and the person in charge of MKO’s cyber operations, is heard talking with a US-based MKO sympathizer named Daei-ul-Eslam in Farsi, IFP news reported.

In this conversation, the two elements discuss the MKO’s efforts to introduce Iran as the culprit behind the tanker attacks in the Persian Gulf, and how the Saudis contacted them to pursue the issue.

“In the past week we did our best to blame the [Iranian] regime for the (oil tanker) blasts. Saudis have called Sister Maryam (Rajavi)’s office to follow up on the results, [to get] a conclusion of what has been done, and the possible consequences,” Fakhteh is heard saying.

“I guess this can have different consequences. It can send the case to the UN Security Council or even result in military intervention. It can have any consequence,” Daei-ul-Eslam says.

Attacks on two commercial oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman on June 13, and an earlier attack on four oil tankers off the UAE’s Fujairah port on May 12, 2019, have escalated tensions in West Asia and raised the prospect of a military confrontation between Iran and the United States.

The US, Saudi regime, and the UAE have rushed to blame Iran for the incidents, with the US military releasing a grainy video it claimed shows Iranian forces in a patrol boat removing an unexploded mine from the side of a Japanese-owned tanker which caught fire earlier.

It later released some images of the purported Iranian operation after the video was seriously challenged by experts and Washington’s own allies.

The MKO which is said to be a cult which turns humans into obedient robots, turned against Iran after the 1979 Revolution and has carried out several terrorist attacks killing senior officials in Iran; yet the West which says cultism is wrong and claims to be against terrorism, supports this terrorist group officially.

After the resounding victory of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, the MKO began its enmity against Iran by killings over 17,000 Iranians and terrorist activities. Several members of the terrorist group and its ringleaders are living in France now, freely conducting terrorist activities.

The MKO terrorist group has martyred 17,161 Iranian citizens, including late President Mohammad Ali Rajayee, former Prime Minister Mohammad Javad Bahonar, late Head of Supreme Judicial Council Ayatollah Mohammad Hosseini Beheshti, late Deputy Chief of the Iranian Armed Forces General Staff Ali Sayyad Shirazi, and 72 legislators, as well as four nuclear scientists.