The Bruges Criminal Court sentenced a 22-year-old man from Charleroi on Wednesday to a six-month suspended prison sentence for desertion and forgery.
The man had been undergoing his training with the Belgian navy. He was accused of having multiplied his absences and then of having provided false medical certificates. The court said it was not necessary for him to be a member of the army to
The defendant was training to become a sailor at the Zeebrugge naval base but started accumulating unjustified absences around October 2021. In peacetime, eight days of unjustified absence is enough to be considered a deserter. In wartime, this threshold is lowered to three days.
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The young man finally reported to the naval base at the end of July 2022 with medical certificates which were later exposed as having been forged. During his interrogation, the defendant confessed to having paid €25 to obtain these documents.
The defendant did not appear in court during his trial on 1 February. This led the prosecutor to request six months imprisonment with a fine. However, the judge took into account the defendant’s clean record and sentenced him in absentia to six-month suspended prison sentence.
