2023-09-12 08:39:09
The courtroom on the third floor of the Ghent Courthouse was packed for the start of the trial in the Schild & Vrienden case. Seven members of the small far-right group, including their leader (and former federal deputy sitting in the Vlaams Belang group) Dries Van Langenhove, must answer, among other things, for violations of the law against racism and legislation on negationism.
Also read Three questions to understand the trial on the Schild & Vrienden affair
Except that a few minutes after the opening of the session, it was directly closed. The reason: Dries Van Langenhove’s defense requests the recusal of President Jan Van den Berghe because it questions his impartiality. According to lawyer Hans Rieder, who is in charge of the defense, Jan Van den Berghe voluntarily abstained from sitting in the Council Chamber in order to be able to rule on the merits of the case before the criminal court.
As press magistrate Laurence De Rudder explains, the “hearing incident” this Tuesday morning therefore concerns the distribution of the case between chambers of the same jurisdiction. According to the judicial code, it is then up to the president of the court to decide whether to assign the case differently (or not) and to set a date for the continuation of events. The president must then rule by order within eight days following the hearing. In the meantime, the matter is adjourned indefinitely.
This trial takes place exactly five years after the broadcast of the VRT journalistic investigation on Schild & Vrienden. A small far-right group whose members, it was then discovered, exchanged thousands of racist, sexist, anti-Semitic and homophobic messages and photo montages in private groups on Facebook and Discord. Following the broadcast of the said report, the East Flanders public prosecutor’s office opened an investigation.
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