A man from Hoeilaart, Flemish Brabant, received a six-month suspended prison sentence from the Brussels correctional court on Monday for shooting a burglar in November 2021.
The prosecution and defence had asked for his acquittal on the grounds of self-defence, but the court did not agree, contending that this was a case of provocation.
The events took place in mid-November 2021. The man had gone for a walk with his dog in the late afternoon. When he returned home, he noticed that the grille in front of an armoured window had been removed and heard a rumble one floor up, where his parents lived.
The man retrieved a gun from a safe, went with it to the room where he had heard noise and fired a shot. A burglar was hit in the back but was still able to run out of the garden and climb over the fence before going down. According to his lawyer, the occupant had shot on purpose and this was therefore attempted manslaughter.
However, both the prosecution and the defence argued for an acquittal.
“This was already the fourth burglary at my client’s home,” pleaded Master Jacques Vandeuren. “He panicked that night and reached for a weapon.” According to the defence, he acted under irresistible duress and it was anyway a case of self-defence.
The court ruled that there could be no question of irresistible duress because the man had sought the confrontation himself, nor was it self-defence, among other things because the Hoeilaart man’s reaction was not proportional. According to the court, the man had been provoked.
