A 43-year-old man from Bruges, who has been imprisoned in Cambodia for nearly five years, is taking the Belgian State to court. He was given a life sentence for drug smuggling but maintains his innocence.
In 2019, Tanguy Taller was given a sentence of life imprisonment for drug smuggling, largely on the basis of one statement that was subsequently retracted. Via a mobile phone that Taller can "rent" from a prison guard, he can make weekly calls to his lawyer Bert Vanmechelen in Belgium.
"It is a harrowing story," Vanmechelen told VRT. "The man has been in jail for almost 1,700 days. He is in a block together with 400 prisoners. There are the high temperatures, the electricity regularly fails, he has been physically attacked several times."
"There is someone there with tuberculosis, constantly coughing up blood, someone with scabies, someone with HIV, someone with hepatitis. The detention conditions are horrible, it is hell there," he said. "That cuts into someone's health anyway. Other international prisoners are often out within a year, why is that not possible for him?"
'Doing too little'
To keep up the pressure, Vanmechelen decided to take the Belgian State to court in mid-December, Het Laatste Nieuws reports. "We are asking the Belgian government to give him perspective. At the moment, it feels like he is getting a middle finger."
The Belgian authorities reacted to the formal notice on 20 December, but Vanmechelen called their response "vague."
For Taller's stepfather, Yves Rasquin, Belgium is doing "too little for a citizen in need," saying that this court action is "the only option left."
"It did not seem hopeless for a long time while Tanguy's case was coming before the court. But now that that hope has been taken away, and life imprisonment in Cambodia really means life imprisonment, he is despairing," he said. "It is also very difficult for his mother. It is becoming untenable."
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Federal Justice Minister Van Tigchelt confirmed that Taller started a lawsuit against the Belgian State, but parried criticisms that he is not doing enough to get the man back to Belgium.
"We do not abandon compatriots, including him. We are keeping diplomatic pressure high, and on the other hand we are trying to conclude a transfer agreement with Cambodia. That is the only legal action I can take to get him here," Van Tigchelt's office told VRT. "It is of course possible that Cambodia will pardon or reduce his sentence, but that is in their hands."
However, both sides must agree to the terms of such an agreement, he added. "Just before New Year, I wrote another letter to Cambodia to speed things up. I understand that every day in such a cell is an eternity for [Taller], so I get that it seems to be taking a long time, but a lot of it is not in the hands of the Belgian authorities."
Belgium has not yet received a green light from the Cambodian authorities, Van Tigchelt said, "but I will keep trying."
