NEW: A court in Belgium jails an Iranian diplomat for 20 years for planning a bomb attack on a rally of exiled opponents in Paris in 2018. Judge says 49 year old Assadollah Assadi was supported by the authorities in Tehran. Some incredible detail in this case. THREAD 1/

Up to 80,000 activists, as well as international politicians and @RudyGiuliani had gathered at the event. 2/

As a diplomat, Assadollah Assadi had protection under Vienna Convention of 1961.

But he broke all convention when he arrived in the Austrian capital on a commercial flight with half kilo of explosive TATP in his diplomatic bag.

Under international norms, it wasn’t checked. 3/

But undercover agents watched Assadi hand over the bomb to a Belgian-Iranian couple at this Pizza Hut in Luxembourg. They were later arrested in Belgium. Assadi was detained in Germany - where unlike in Austria - he had no immunity from prosecution. 4/

The French government is among those who accused Iran's intelligence service of being behind the operation. Tehran denies this and has condemned the trial. It claims Assadi is the victim of a Western trap. 5/

British former senior government minister Theresa Villiers was at the rally - in support of a constiuent whose wife was murdered in Iran. She told me was “astonished” by the plot and that there could have been a “terrible” death toll. 6/

All this as @POTUS and western allies want to repair fraught relations with Tehran.

Details of a state-sponsored plot for mass-murder at the heart of Europe won’t help.

More reaction on @BBCWorld @bbcworldservice & @BBCNews from the max-security court in Antwerp later 8/

Iranian opposition activists are celebrating the verdict outside the courtroom. 9/