The Catholic University of Leuven (KU Leuven) will launch new disciplinary proceedings for students who participated in an initiation ceremony that led to the death of a student in December 2018.
The 20-year-old engineering student Dia died after an initiation ceremony during which, among other things, he and other students were made to drink large quantities of alcohol and fish oil, and strip naked in a freezing forest, then had cold water poured over them.
The university, which said on Friday that it recently obtained access to the file of the criminal case, disclosed that it “is using its right of inspection and has launched a new disciplinary investigation.”
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The university will temporarily deny the students concerned access to the KU Leuven buildings until the end of the first semester of the academic year.
They will no longer be able to play an active role in distance learning, but will be allowed to follow digital classes for which no contact with their classmates is required, according to KU Leuven.
The university added that it did not wish to make any further comments “so as to preserve the serenity of the internal proceedings and the legal proceedings.”
The Brussels Times
