Last week it became known that on April 21, a prisoner was released by mistake from the prison of Sint-Gillis. On the same day, according to ‘Het Nieuwsblad’, someone was set free in Bergen prison by mistake. A third detainee was released that day, but three weeks too late.
On April 21, Mohamed BB was released from Saint-Gilles prison. The man was convicted of rape and was interned and made available to the sentencing court. This means that he will remain locked up even after his sentence if he proves to be a danger to society.
However, a mistaken identity ensured that he was free for a while. Not Mohamed BB, but a fellow detainee with a very similar name was actually allowed to leave prison that day. According to Kathleen Van De Vijver, spokesman for the prison system, the device to check fingerprints of a detainee was defective. “We take it very seriously. We are also investigating whether the planned procedures have been followed”, it sounds in ‘het Nieuwsblad’.
As soon as the mistake came out, the convicted rapist was put on the ‘Most Wanted’ list. A few days later he was arrested in an apartment near the prison.
That same day, April 21, there was also a blunder in Bergen prison. A detainee who had been in custody there for some time was arrested that day in a second case. However, the investigating judge decided to cancel the second arrest, after which the prison released him. The fact that he had been arrested in another case was briefly overlooked by the prison staff. The man is still at large.
Too late
To top it all off, a Romanian was released on April 21 who had been in Turnhout prison for three weeks too long. He was serving a 40-month prison sentence for theft, but on March 29, the appeals court reduced that to 15 months. That meant that his sentence had been served, but in prison that was not included in the man’s file. It was not until April 21 that the man had been detained for three weeks too long. The Immigration Office actually wanted to repatriate the man to Romania because he did not have a residence permit, but because he had been in jail for too long, this was compromised and he had to be released immediately.
Clerks
That a similar administrative error can happen in three prisons in one day is very exceptional, but also puts the finger on a sensitive spot in the prison system. At the moment, a large part of the 35 chiefs of clerks in Belgian prisons are retiring. They are responsible for the administrative functioning of the prisons and are succeeded by new, young colleagues with little experience. “We are now fully committed to training those young people and tightening up the court registry procedures,” says Van De Vijver.
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