Three men held responsible for a kidnapping that took place in May 2024 in the Brussels municipality of Saint-Gilles were sentenced on Friday by the Brussels Criminal Court to prison terms of four and six years.
The kidnapping is believed to have been in retaliation for a drug deal gone wrong, but the three suspects had denied any involvement. The kidnapping took place during the night of Tuesday 14 to Wednesday 15 May 2024 in Rue Joseph Claes in Saint-Gilles, not far from Brussels-Midi station.
A witness called the police after seeing a person being attacked on the street, trying to barricade himself in a house, but being dragged into a vehicle by his attackers. That vehicle turned out to belong to a man from Mechelen, Y.
That same night, the shipping police in Antwerp also received a report from Germany of a possible hostage-taking situation. The caller said that a friend had been taken and that a ransom was being demanded. Photos and a video were shown in which the victim was beaten and threatened with a knife and a gas burner.
During a search of Y.’s home, the police found an identical gas burner, and the floor covering in the home was also identical to what could be seen in the photos and video that had been sent.
According to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, it was therefore clear that the victim had been kidnapped in Saint-Gilles and then taken to Y.’s home in Mechelen, where he was repeatedly assaulted until he his release two days later.
According to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, telephone wiretappings also showed that Y.'s younger brother was involved in the crimes alongside a third suspect, C. The three allegedly kidnapped the victim because they wanted revenge and compensation after the victim stole five kilograms of cocaine.
The victim was also identified and found in the Netherlands, but was very reluctant to make a statement. During the investigation, the man did not cooperate, but when the case came to court, he suddenly produced a statement. "I was in Brussels when I got into a fight with two men in a black BMW with Dutch number plates, who attacked and beat me because they claimed I had stolen money from them," he said.
"The eldest of the Y. brothers then intervened and took me away to calm me down. We first drove to a posh bar in Vilvoorde and then to his home in Mechelen. I stayed there for a while, but the men in the black BMW kept contacting and threatening me and told me to tell the police that I had been attacked in Mechelen, not in Brussels. After two days, I asked the eldest of the Y. brothers to take me to the station so that I could go to the Netherlands."
The Public Prosecutor’s Office found this new statement implausible, but the defence of the three suspects saw it as an additional reason to request acquittal."This investigation is full of holes," argued Saïd Aboulakil, the lawyer for the eldest brother Y.
"Several leads have not been investigated, including the lead of the black BMW. The witness statements about the fight also differ, as do the statements made by the victim," the defence lawyer continued. "The victim also refused to look at photos of possible suspects to see if he recognised anyone. The police were only able to identify the victim because my client gave them his name. Why would he do that if he had kidnapped and tortured him?"
An audio message was also found on the victim’s smartphone dating from shortly before the events, in which he agrees to come to Mechelen, and another from after the events in which he mentions a black BMW with Dutch number plates," Aboulakil argued.
"That also exonerates my client. No investigation was conducted into the alleged deal, nor into the man who called the police from Germany. He claimed to have photos and a video, but never provided them to the police. Who is this man and what is his role in the story? That has never been investigated either."
According to the lawyer of the younger brother Y., there was also no evidence against his client that he was involved in the fight or the kidnapping. The lawyer of the third suspect C. argued along the same lines.
However, the defence’s arguments did not find favour with the court, which found all the facts proven. The eldest of the Y. brothers was sentenced to six years in prison, and the other two suspects were each sentenced to four years.
The court also ordered the immediate arrest of the eldest of the Y. brothers.
