APPREHENDED
- Full name: Nasimeh Assadi
- Pseudonym: N/a
- Alternatives: N/a
- Location: Belgium, fmr Iran
- Affiliation: Ministry of Intelligence of the Islamic Republic of Iran [MOIS]
Nasimeh Naami (°1984) is an Iranian state terrorist based in Belgium. She came to the country posing as a refugee and later married a fellow Iranian immigrant. They settled in the Antwerp suburb of Wilrijk, where Naami allegedly worked at a supermarket.1 The couple presented themselves as modern and perfectly integrated in Belgian society.2 In reality, she and her husband belonged to a network of spies that monitored exiled dissidents on behalf of the Iranian theocratic regime.3 Naami has traveled extensively to Iran during the 2010s. She has worked with senior Iranian intelligence agent Assadollah Assadi since 2015.4 Although her family has strong ties to the Iranian intelligence community, Naami does not appear to have acted out of ideological convictions.5
In 2018, Naami and her husband became part of a cell headed by Assadi which had been tasked by Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence with attacking the annual gathering of the National Council of the Iranian Resistance [NCRI] in Paris. Assadi in return gave the couple about 500.000 EUR.6 The plot was apparently discussed during a meeting in Austria in March of that year.7 On Jun. 28, Naami and her husband were given a powerful bomb by Assadi during a trip to Luxembourg.8 Two days later, Belgian police arrested them in a suburb of Brussels as they were on their way to attack the meeting.9 Following trial proceedings which she refused to attend, Naami was sentenced to eighteen years in prison by an Antwerp court.10 The judge also revoked her Belgian citizenship and confiscated possessions valued at half a million EUR that were acquired through spying and terrorist activity.11
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