Mohamed Bakkali eligible for parole: Victoria Vandeberg questions the Minister of Justice and calls for greater firmness in sentence enforcement
On the occasion of parliament's return from recess, MR federal MP Victoria Vandeberg questioned Justice Minister Annelies Verlinden in the Chamber this Thursday on the enforcement of sentences for the most serious crimes. At the heart of her address: the case of Mohamed Bakkali, sentenced in France to thirty years in prison for his role in the 13 November 2015 attacks in Paris, who, now detained in Belgium, can already seek parole after serving just a third of his sentence.
His French sentence carried a twenty-year security period. But Mohamed Bakkali had obtained a “return clause”, allowing him to serve his sentence in Belgium and thus subjecting him to Belgian rules on sentence enforcement, under which the French security period becomes void. His request will be examined on 29 September by the Brussels sentence enforcement court. In short, one of the logisticians of the 13 November attacks can seek parole after ten years in detention, whereas French justice required him to wait twenty years before any such request.
For Victoria Vandeberg, this gap between the sentence handed down and its actual enforcement raises a fundamental question of consistency and trust in justice.
“The conviction remains the same. The crimes remain the same. But simply by serving his sentence on the other side of the border, he can request release ten years earlier. How do you expect victims to understand that?”, she asked.
The MP stressed the suffering of victims and their loved ones, who are confronted with this prospect while the consequences of the attacks remain part of their daily lives. “A thirty-year prison sentence must have meaning. For the person receiving it. For the victims. For society as a whole,” Victoria Vandeberg insisted, before asking the Minister: “When will we finally reform our system so that sentences handed down match the crimes committed, including in their enforcement?”
Raising the threshold for parole eligibility
In light of this situation, Victoria Vandeberg advocated tightening the conditions for parole, at the heart of a bill tabled by Denis Ducarme and the MR group.
For the most serious crimes, terrorism first and foremost, the MR wants to raise the threshold for parole eligibility: requiring that a much larger proportion of the sentence has actually been served before parole can be requested. Today, a third of the sentence is enough.
The MP called on the Minister to support this initiative, reminding her that citizens' trust in the state also depends on the firmness of sentences actually carried out against those who commit the most serious crimes.