After the Federal Government's efforts to get Belgian Olivier Vandecasteele out of jail in Iran, the parents of Tanguy Taller from Bruges, who has been locked up in a cell in Cambodia for four years, are also asking for help.
Taller was sentenced to life in prison for drug smuggling, but his parents say he is innocent. They point out that he was convicted on the basis of one statement, which was subsequently retracted.
"He was given a mock trial where all legal rules were flouted. He was given a heavy symbolic sentence for a drug offence he did not commit," reads a press statement from Taller's mother and stepfather.
The stories about the degrading conditions in which Vandecasteele was held in Iran also hold true for their son, according to the parents. "Tanguy has had to sleep on a concrete block for 56 months, in an overcrowded noisy cell where the lights never go out and in oppressive heat that is sometimes almost unbearable."
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His parents hope that the Foreign Affairs Ministry will make equal efforts to try to get him released. The authorities have since confirmed to De Morgen they are following up the Taller case.
While details on the exact state of affairs could not be given, but "high-level steps are being taken both locally and in Brussels" to get Belgian detainees in Cambodia like Tanguy back to Belgium.
Foreign Affairs handles between 450 and 500 cases of Belgian nationals in a foreign cell, the FPS Justice website still states.
