Guido’s killer will not return to prison

14 November 2007

ANTWERP – The appeal court in Antwerp has sentenced 19-year-old Redouan S. to a suspended two-year prison term. The young man kicked train conductor Guido Demoor last year during an incident on a bus. Demoor suffered cerebral bleeding as a result and died. Another five youths were also involved in the attack.

The defence had argued that the victim had provoked the attack by first grabbing the defendant by the throat. If the court had followed this reasoning then the maximum penalty would only have been three months. The court did not agree however.

The lower court had initially accepted the provocation as a mitigating factor but also said in its decision that the victim had not done anything wrong, which of course was contradictory to its acceptance of provocation. The appeal court therefore declared the lower court’s ruling void, along with its effective two-year prison sentence for S.

The young man, who served six months in pre-trial detention, will therefore not have to return to prison. He will be on probation however and must pay out substantial damages to the victim’s family. 

[Copyright Expatica News 2007]

Subject: Belgian news