A 37-year-old man from Liège has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for attempted murder after shooting the wrong target during a revenge attack.
The incident took place on 9 September 2022 outside a bar in Saint-Nicolas, near Liège. According to the Liège court, the defendant, who said he had been forced to take part in drug trafficking, had been in conflict with members of a group involved in selling narcotics.
On the day of the shooting, he allegedly refused to sell cocaine and was confronted over it. He then returned home, collected a Beretta pistol and came back to the bar, where he opened fire. However, he mistook his target and shot a man standing outside with his wife and daughter.
The victim was hit on the left side and survived after undergoing emergency surgery.
The gunman fled and only turned himself in to police more than three years after the attack.
The court sentenced him as a repeat offender to 12 years in prison, with an additional five years of supervision by the sentence enforcement court.
