Belgium’s highest court is set to rule on Wednesday on appeals filed by the Belgian state against orders to release former footballer Nizar Trabelsi from detention.
Trabelsi, a former Tunisian footballer, was sentenced to ten years in prison in Belgium in 2004 for planning an attack on the Kleine-Brogel military base in Peer, Flanders. He was also convicted of illegal weapons possession and membership of terrorist group Al-Qaeda.
In 2008, US authorities requested his extradition, which the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) formally prohibited. Despite this, Belgium extradited Trabelsi to the United States in 2013. In 2023, however, a US court acquitted him of those charges.
On 8 August, he was sent back to Belgium but was immediately issued an order by the Immigration Office to leave the country. He has since been detained at the Merksplas detention centre for undocumented migrants.
On 22 August, the Council for Alien Law Litigation revoked the deportation order, and the Brussels council chamber ruled that Trabelsi should be released from detention. The Belgian state appealed this decision, but the appeal was rejected.
The state then filed a cassation appeal against the decisions. However, the general prosecutor at the Court of Cassation has stated there is no legal basis to annul these rulings. If the court follows this recommendation, there will be no legal grounds left to keep Trabelsi incarcerated.
