Belgian state must pay Nizar Trabelsi 100,000 euros in damages and ask the US for repatriation | Inland

Tunisian Nizar Trabelsi was arrested in 2001 for planning an attack on the army base of Kleine Brogel. The man was sentenced to ten years in prison by the Brussels Court of Appeal in 2004 and served that sentence completely. In October 2013, Belgium extradited him to the United States, despite a decision by the ECtHR in Strasbourg forbidding this.

In 2014, the ECtHR declared that the extradition violated the European Convention on Human Rights and even ordered Belgium to pay compensation of 90,000 euros to Nizar Trabelsi.

The Court of Cassation also confirmed in March 2021 that the extradition to the United States in 2013 of Nizar Trabelsi was limited and that he could therefore no longer be prosecuted in the United States for the offenses for which he was convicted in Belgium. Belgium also had to make this clear to the American authorities. In May of this year, that court order was repeated by the Brussels Court of Appeal, and a penalty of 250,000 euros was attached to it.

On Tuesday, the court ruled in another procedure, in which Trabelsi’s lawyers wanted to hold the Belgian state liable for the treatment the man has been undergoing since his extradition in the United States. Trabelsi has been in a maximum-security prison for years, in complete isolation in a cell where there is no daylight and the electric light is on 24 hours a day. The man suffers from post-traumatic stress, symptoms of psychosis, hallucinations, panic attacks and is self-mutilating, according to United Nations reports. Moreover, he does not receive the necessary medical care.

The court ruled in favor of Trabelsi’s lawyers, ruling that the Belgian government had failed to fulfill its obligations to the man, and that without the violation of the ECtHR’s extradition ban, Trabelsi would not be in prison in the US. and would not run the risk of being condemned there.

The Brussels Court of Appeal therefore orders the Belgian State to pay compensation of around 100,000 euros. This equates to 10,000 euros per year that he has been in an American prison.

The Belgian state must also inform all Belgian witnesses called for the trial in the United States that Trabelsi is on trial there for offenses for which he has already been convicted, and that by testifying they would be contributing to a violation of the principle that no one should can be convicted of the same offenses over and over again.

Belgium must also urge the US to provide Trabelsi with the necessary medical care, and above all, the Belgian state must send the US a diplomatic note within 30 days requesting that Trabelsi be returned to Belgium. If the Belgian government does not do this, it must pay a penalty of 10,000 euros per day, with a maximum of 100,000 euros.