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Police patrol during the trial of four persons, including an Iranian diplomat and Belgian-Iranian couple at the courthouse in Antwerp, Belgium, February 4, 2021. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)
BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) An Iranian diplomat convicted of masterminding a thwarted bomb attack against an exiled Iranian opposition group in France has decided against appealing the verdict, his lawyer and a Belgian court said Wednesday.
Assadollah Assadi was sentenced to 20 years in prison earlier this year for attempted terrorist murder and participation in the activities of a terrorist group after the Antwerp court rejected his claim of diplomatic immunity. Assadi previously worked at the Iranian Embassy in Vienna, Austria.
Benjamin Netanyahu Fast Facts
Personal
Birth place: Tel Aviv, Israel
Birth name
Children: with Sara Ben-Artzi: Avner and Yair; with Miriam Haran: Noa
Education: Attended Harvard University; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, B.S., 1974, and M.S., 1976
Military service: Israeli Defense Forces, 1967-1972, Captain
Religion
Is known throughout Israel by the nickname “Bibi.”
Spent his teenage years in the United States; went to high school in Philadelphia.
First Israeli prime minister to be born after the state was founded in 1948.
Netanyahu’s brother, Yonatan, was killed in action in 1976 while leading a mission to rescue Israeli passengers on a hijacked Air France plane.
Human rights advocates, former hostages and some members of Congress are urging the Biden administration not to seriously engage with Tehran on reinstating the nuclear deal until all U.S. and Western hostages held in Iran are released, thus maintaining maximum leverage for their safe return.
“There should be no sanctions relief until at least the hostages are released and an agreement [is] in place” to prevent hostage taking from happening again, said Jason Poblete, a human rights attorney who represented released hostages Nizar Zakka and Xiyue Wang. Both Zakka and Wang were held for years in Iran before their release in 2019.