In the case of the death in 2022 of a 42-year-old Russian man who was caught in the act of stealing from a transport company in Beervelde, East Flanders, six men were found guilty of deliberate assault resulting in death. This was decided by the Ghent Correctional Court on Monday.
"The court has established that the defendants acted lawfully in the first phase, but afterwards, in an emotional state of mind and without having the required capacity or skills, they used disproportionate violence and thus crossed the boundary of what is legally permissible."
The events took place during the night of 15-16 November 2022. The Russian man was caught red-handed stealing heating oil from a transport company on Haanhoutstraat, after which there was an incident involving six people connected to the company. The man was chased and killed in a nearby meadow.
The six were brought before the examining magistrate in Ghent. They were granted unconditional release, but they were suspected of inflicting deliberate blows and injuries, without the intention to kill, but with death as a consequence.
Hands tied behind back
The widow's lawyer argued last month in the criminal court that the six defendants had acted with premeditation.
"They had a plan in advance to take the law into their own hands, to intercept the man and restrain him with cable ties. They claim that what they did is acceptable or excusable; but this is not about lawful self-defence, a citizen's arrest or a lack of caution. They worked the man towards the ground, jumped on him and tied him up with strips of cloth," the lawyer said.
The public prosecutor had painted a different picture of the facts. "There had been fuel thefts for years. A man could be seen on camera footage and the defendants had prepared themselves to catch the man in the act. It had been agreed in advance not to use violence.
They had hidden themselves and one of them saw a shadow on the meadow with a night-vision device. The victim entered the company premises with water bottles and so there was already a start to the execution and preparatory actions for a theft," according to the prosecutor.
In view of ‘the victim's own responsibility’ and the fact that it was ‘not the intention to use violence,’ the public prosecutor's office asked for the favour of a suspension for the five. A community service order was demanded for the sixth defendant, who had been convicted previously.
The man's lawyer also thought a community service order was the appropriate punishment, but several other defendants requested an acquittal. "This was a case of civil law enforcement," argued Anne Marie De Clerck, the lawyer for the second defendant.
"All the conditions for this were met. The fuel theft had been going on for years and the man was caught in the act of attempted theft. There had also been prior contact with the police, who cooperated. They said, 'call us if you see him' and 'you can detain him', but afterwards the police claimed that this meant that they were not allowed to approach him themselves," De Clerck said.
Victim's weight
The court did not agree and referred to the autopsy report, among other things. "The medical examiner concluded that a combination of factors had contributed to the death: asphyxia due to being tied up, a stressful situation and agitation of the victim, a previous physical exertion, violent resistance and obesity,” the court stated in a press release. “In addition, there could also have been suffocation, given the dirt that was found around the victim's mouth, on his lips and between his teeth."
The fact that the victim "himself committed several unlawful acts, was obese and was out of breath as a result of the physical exertion just delivered, namely the chase, does not detract from the finding that his death would not have occurred without the actions that the defendants committed on him," according to the verdict. "In this case, there is no reasonable doubt that a causal link between the death of victim on November 15, 2022, and the actions of the defendants has been established."
The three judges are of the opinion that the defendants did have the right to detain the victim while waiting for the police to arrive. "However, they did not apply this right with the required caution and proportionality. Tying a person down in a prone position with their hands behind their back is a physically invasive act that can even have fatal consequences, as was the case here."
Community service
In court, the defence also only partially argued that the defendants acted in self-defence. "Specifically, this concerns the beating with the stick and the bringing down of the victim, which is proportional to the violent attempted attack with a knife. In the second phase - the handcuffing and restraining of the victim - there was no proportional relationship between the actions of the defendant and the danger present. For the same reasons, there was also no question of provocation."
The court imposed a community service order of 150 hours on each of the six defendants, but they can still appeal the verdict. A division of liability was established, which means that one third of the damage was caused by the victim's own fault. The defendants must pay the victim's widow and children a total of €50,100 in damages and a court costs allowance of €4,709.30.
