The Belgian State cannot be obliged to bring back Belgian Syria fighters and their children to our country. The Brussels court of appeal has reversed an earlier decision on the repatriation of six children. The sky-high penalties that have been imposed on our country will therefore be canceled.
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In December 2019, the Dutch-speaking court of first instance in Brussels ruled that the government had to bring back the ten children of Flemish Syria fighters as soon as possible. The children, between six months and seven years old at the time, were held in camps in northern Syria. Their parents are from Antwerp.
The court ruled that Belgium had to provide the ten children with the necessary identity and travel documents. Every day that our country did not do this, Belgium would have to pay a penalty of 5,000 euros per child.
Photo: VRT
In February the penalty had already risen to 500,000 euros. The lawyers for the four Syria fighters who had filed the lawsuit responded a bailiff to the cabinets of Justice and Foreign Affairs.
After ten months, that amount had increased into millions of euros.
Meanwhile, it concerned six children: one Syria fighter returned in June on her own back with her four children.
“Parentage has not been proven”
The Belgian State appealed against the conviction. The court of appeal now ruled that the government cannot be obliged to bring people back. Not the Syria fighters themselves, but not their children either.
One of the arguments of the court is that the parentage of the children cannot be proven. The children were born in Syria, and there is no DNA test to show that they are indeed children of the Belgians.
Attorneys for the families involved, Abderrahim Lahlali and Mohamed Ozdemir, respond briefly. They want to study the judgment first, and then they want to get advice to see if they can go to the Supreme Court.
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