Due to a “courtroom incident”, the criminal trial against far-right politician Dries Van Langehove’s “Schild & Vrieden” group has been postponed, VRT Nieuws reports.
Today at the Ghent Criminal Court, the founder of the group and six other defendants were scheduled to answer charges relating to racism and Holocaust denial, as well as other charges.
The courtroom incident relates to the lawyer of Van Langenhove, who claimed that the case was not correctly assigned by the judge. The lawyer objected to the fact that the case would be heard in the East Flanders court.
In the corridors of the courthouse, Van Langehove's lawyer explained that, in his view, the decision to appoint the judge to this case had been unlawful. The suspect's lawyer cited case law of the European Court of Human Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights.
The East Flanders Public Prosecutor’s Office first opened an investigation into the group after a report broadcast by VRT on 5 September 2018 disclosed racist, sexist and anti-Semitic conversations involving Schild & Vrienden members, which is a Flemish nationalist youth movement founded by Van Langenhove.
Van Langenhove delivers a speech at a radical Flemish far-right gathering in Yser. Credit: Belga / Nicolas Maeterlinck
The far-right parliamentarian was formally charged in June 2019, and later released on conditions.
One of these conditions was to visit the Dossin Barracks in Mechelen, from where more than 25,000 Belgian Jews and Roma were deported during the Second World War to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.
The politician’s parliamentary immunity was lifted by the House in March 2021 so that he could be tried formally in Belgium.
Van Langenhove no longer services as a member of the House of Representatives.
