Belgian court discharges 31 defendants in drugs trial over excessive delays

A discharge after nearly nine years

A court in Hasselt, in the Belgian province of Limburg, ruled on Friday, 23 October 2026 that the prosecution of 31 defendants in a large drugs trial had lapsed. The judges did not weigh the facts of the case. They found that the proceedings had dragged on for far too long, which the court called a serious breach of the right to be tried within a reasonable time. Among those freed was John H., a Dutch national from Sint-Willebrord known as 'De Onderwijzer' (The Teacher). Delays of this kind usually lead to a reduced sentence rather than a discharge, which makes the ruling rare. The federal prosecutor's office has said it will appeal.

What the court found

The court counted nearly nine years between the first judicial step in January 2018 and Friday's judgment. The federal police completed their active investigation in 2018, and the court identified several periods of unexplained inactivity totalling almost five years. The court found that neither the complexity of the case nor the conduct of the defendants explained the delay. The defence had raised the delay from the first day of the trial and argued that it should bring the prosecution to an end. Wiretap evidence added to the problem: more than a hundred phone numbers were tapped for months, producing about 2.7 terabytes of data that was at first unreadable and later only partly searchable on computers too weak to process it. The court's spokesperson, Luc De Cleir, put the timeline this way.

“The court found that nearly nine years passed between the start of the judicial investigation in January 2018 and today's judgment.”

The case and the defendants

Prosecutors had asked for prison sentences totalling more than 160 years for the 31 defendants, along with the confiscation of 14 million euros. For John H., they asked for 20 years, reduced to 18 to account for the excessive delay. The case centred on chemicals ordered through the Polysan soap factory in Lommel, including formic acid, hydrochloric acid and acetone, which were used to make synthetic drugs. Prosecutors also alleged cocaine trafficking to Malta, with drugs hidden in vehicles fitted with secret compartments. Nine defendants are now over 65, some have serious health problems, and almost all had already spent time in pre-trial detention, some of them around a year. John H. had been convicted several times before, including an eight-year sentence in 2019 for trying to sell 50 kilograms of cocaine to undercover agents.

Reaction and what comes next

The ruling came as senior Belgian magistrates keep warning about a lack of resources for the justice system. The court also weighed the personal circumstances of the defendants, noting that some had rebuilt their lives since the offences without new convictions. Federal prosecutors have said they will appeal, so the ruling can still be challenged. Whether the appeal changes the outcome for the 31 defendants remains open.