The Brussels Court of Appeal ordered the Belgian state to pay additional penalties for not doing enough to bring convicted Nizar Trabelsi back to Belgium.
The former Tunisian footballer was sentenced in Belgium in 2004 to 10 years in prison for planning a suicide truck bombing attack on the Kleine-Brogel air base. Trabelsi was also found guilty of illegal possession of weapons and of belonging to the terrorist group Al-Qaeda.
In November 2008, the US authorities requested Belgium to extradite Trabelsi, arguing that he may have been involved in activities for Al-Qaeda that went beyond those for which he had been convicted in Belgium.
However, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) issued an emergency order prohibiting Belgium from extraditing him to the United States. The Belgian government did not wait for all legal remedies to be exhausted and, on 3 October 2013, the extradition was carried out.
In 2014, the ECHR ruled that this extradition violated the European Convention on Human Rights.
In July 2023, Trabelsi was acquitted by a federal court in Washington. Despite his acquittal, Trabelsi remains imprisoned in the US state of Virginia, where his health has reportedly deteriorated further. He has requested to be allowed to return to Belgium, where his wife lives.
In 2022, the Court of Appeal had already ruled that Belgium should request to bring back Trabelsi. In a judgment of 30 January, ordered the Belgian State to complete the necessary formalities to enable Trabelsi's return to Belgium. That judgment also provided for penalties of €15,000 per day of delay, albeit limited to €300,000, but has still not been enforced.
