An Antwerp judge has been living in a safe house for months due to serious threats from drug traffickers, Mediahuis newspapers reported.
The city, which due to its major port is one of Europe's main drug gateways, has been plagued by drug-related violence for years.
The presidents of the Association of Investigating Judges in Belgium have raised the alarm over the increasingly unsafe conditions threatening investigating judges and magistrates. Two investigative judges are under special protection, and another colleague has been in hiding for months.
"He has been living in a safe house under heavy police guard for months," said presidents Philippe Van Linthout and Jean-Louis Doyen. The news was confirmed to Mediahuis newspapers by the Antwerp prosecutor’s office.
The investigating judge in the safe house reportedly received several serious threats, emanating from the drug environment as a result of working on investigations into organised crime.
SKY ECC ties
The association pointed to authorities cracking billions of messages on the criminal cryptophone networks Sky ECC and Encrochat in March 2021 as a reason for the increased risks facing judges and magistrates. Since then, more than 1,000 people from different gangs have been arrested, and many convicted. Some detainees or convicts are top figures in the international drug trade.
"In seized criminals’ phones, we have found names of investigative judges and their car number plates," Van Linthout explained. "When suspects appear before us, they say things like: ‘You wear that tie often, don’t you?’ Or they refer to hobbies. All aimed at showing what they know."
He noted that some convicted criminals continue these threatening activities from their prison cells. "There are cases where criminals have several phones in their cell and continue working from there." He added that the technologies exist to stop those calls, but that in practice, this is not done. Additionally, many of the high-ranking drug criminals "have so much money" that they can pay for everything, including ensuring threats come through.
"Moreover, there are young people who are prepared to carry out an attack for €500 or even less." In this context, the association lamented the lack of protection for investigating judges and magistrates. "There are often no security gates in the courthouses, you can sometimes even enter without proof of appointment."
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Outgoing Justice Minister Paul Van Tigchelt (Open VLD) responded to the association's warnings, stating that "any threat to a magistrate is a direct attack on the democratic rule of law", and is therefore "unacceptable".
He noted that this is not an isolated case. Magistrates are being threatened, but journalists and politicians have also already had to be in a safe house.
Crisis Centre figures confirm that an increasing number of magistrates, politicians and journalists have been given protection in recent years, most of them following threats from organised crime that were assessed as serious. Today, a total of 89 people are receiving protection, up from 35 in 2017.
