Around 150 people gathered on Tuesday morning at Place Poelaert ahead of the critical hearing in Brussels’ council chamber examining the case of Belgian-Tunisian social worker Sourour Abouda.
The woman, 46, died while in police custody on 12 January 2023 at the police station on Rue Royale in Brussels. She had been arrested earlier that night for public drunkenness by a patrol from the Brussels-Capital/Ixelles police zone.
According to the original police statement, it was death by suicide, but both friends and activists have questioned this.
The Brussels Public Prosecutor's office has since filed a claim for manslaughter against the police zone involved. However, this police station has been involved in a series of other deaths of detainees of North African descent, under similar circumstances.
The hearing began at 10:00, with protesters expressing their outrage over previous alleged police violence cases that failed to result in corrective judicial action.
"We will not tolerate yet another dismissal," said the Justice for Sourour collective prior to proceedings in a statement.
Selma Benkhelifa, the lawyer representing the civil parties, questioned whether a public trial would be granted. She criticised the slow pace of justice in police-related violence cases and reiterated a broader demand for public trials for all individuals who have died at the hands of police.
On Tuesday, the civil parties called for seven police officers to be individually named in the prosecutor’s indictment to enable personal prosecution.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office, however, seeks to charge the Brussels-Capital/Ixelles police zone collectively with involuntary manslaughter due to negligence, without identifying the individual officers involved.
While the referral of a police zone to criminal court is highly unusual, the civil parties argue that naming individual officers is essential for the indictment to be completed. According to Maxime Nardone, the family’s lawyer, such inclusion is necessary for the penal procedure.
Following a closed-door session, the hearing on the case has been postponed to 14 April, the family’s lawyer announced.
By this date, all parties involved must submit their conclusions regarding the identification of the police officers mentioned in the prosecutor’s indictment. The council chamber will then decide whether to refer the case to a criminal court.
The Justice for Sourour collective and the victim’s family said they hoped the council chamber would opt for transparency. They emphasised that such action would send a strong message to the police institution and to individual officers.
