BRUSSELS (AFP) – A Belgian court jailed dozens of people yesterday in one of the country’s biggest ever drug trials, with the ringleaders sentenced to up to 17 years behind bars.
More than 120 defendants from Belgium, Albania, Colombia and North Africa were accused of having participated in a multinational cocaine and cannabis trafficking enterprise after investigators cracked encrypted messaging apps.
The case shone a spotlight on Belgium’s role as Europe’s gateway for drugs.
About two dozen defendants were led in handcuffs into a courtroom in the former headquarters of military alliance NATO in Brussels.
They sat in the dock faced by a line of police officers as judges read out the long list of verdicts. Other accused who had been bailed pending the trial, sat in court to await their fate.
Among the first group to be sentenced was Algerian Abdelwahab Guerni, one of the alleged ringleaders, who was jailed for 17 years.
Albanian citizen Eridan Munoz Guerrero, another suspected leader, received a 14-year term.
Accused of running several cocaine laboratories in Belgium, Munoz Guerrero had admitted his guilt at the start of the trial telling the court: “Your honour, I played, I lost.”
