In the investigation into the drug lab in Lendelede, the Public Prosecution Service will appeal against the dismissal of lawyer Nancy Vanhee by the Bruges council chamber, but not against that for lawyer Walter Van Steenbrugge. As a result, the Ghent Chamber of Indictments must now decide whether Vanhee will be referred to the criminal court for membership of a criminal organization.
The investigation started on the basis of information about a well-known figure in the West Flemish drug environment. It concerns a man who was already convicted in 2017 for his part in a cannabis plantation in Ledegem. The investigators eventually got their sights on a man in his fifties from Ostend as a possible pivotal figure.
In the judicial investigation into the production and export of narcotics, the West Flemish Federal Judicial Police (FGP) carried out a series of house searches on 8 September 2020. A large lab for the production of synthetic drugs was rolled up on a farm in Lendelede. Up to two tons of amphetamines could be produced in an old pigsty. According to the prosecutor’s office, dangerous chemicals were also present. It would even have been the largest drug lab ever in Belgium.
Van Steenbrugge acted as a suspect’s lawyer in the file. In his role as counsel, according to the public prosecutor, he would have gone too far. That is why the prosecution wanted to prosecute him for membership of a criminal organization. For the contacts with the same client, lawyer Nancy Vanhee was also suspected of this. The council chamber decided on Friday not to prosecute them both, but 23 other suspects in the case were referred to the criminal court.
revenge action
Van Steenbrugge already reacted before the decision of the council chamber that it would be a revenge action by a lawyer-general at the Court of Appeal in Ghent, who, according to him, could not accept that the euthanasia trial in 2020 had led to an acquittal for his actions. client. The Ghent Attorney General Erwin Dernicourt then denied that it was a retaliatory action, and it has now been decided that no appeal will be lodged against Van Steenbrugge’s dismissal.
“The Public Prosecution Service has decided on the basis of elements presented at the court session that an appeal must be lodged against the suspension of prosecution of lawyer Vanhee, but not against that of lawyer Van Steenbrugge. It is now up to the KI (indictment chamber, ed. .) to determine whether third parties can simply advise criminals to make the evidence of their illegal activities disappear,” Dernicourt said. After the judicial leave, the AI will decide whether Vanhee will be referred to the criminal court for membership in a criminal organization.
Also read: Top lawyer Walter Van Steenbrugge named in drug case, but emphatically denies: “Pure revenge action by the prosecutor against me” (+)
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