A prison sentence until 2039 did not stop drug criminal Tom W. from smuggling 63 kilos of cannabis from Spain in 2020 among the loads of ham and olive oil. Between October 2021 and May 2022, a certain RT from Hasselt even managed to supply the entire Hasselt prison with drugs, even though he himself was in jail for a shooting and drug sales.
To prevent drug criminals from continuing their trade from prison, Minister of Justice Paul Van Tigchelt (Open VLD) obtained a last minute amendment to the law from Parliament. Detainees who have a connection with organized crime and have been convicted of drug trafficking can be placed under an ‘individual special security regime’. Their contact with the outside world will be limited as much as possible and they will be placed under permanent camera observation.
According to Van Tigchelt, the measure is necessary because more and more leaders of organized crime are being convicted and extradited. “We are not naive, we know that they are trying to continue their criminal activities from prison,” the minister said. This would have already been apparent in the past from intercepted Sky ECC messages.
Only the Director General of the Prisons Service will be able to decide whether to place someone under such a special security regime, and he can only do so on the basis of information from the Federal Prosecutor’s Office or the security and intelligence services. The measure will be independently evaluated after two years by the Supreme Judicial Council or the Committee for the Prevention of Torture.
Italian mustard
Van Tigchelt and his predecessor and party colleague Vincent Van Quickenborne got their inspiration from Italy and the Netherlands, which have long had such systems in place to keep members of the drug mafia in line. The Netherlands has a special Extra Secure Facility (EBI) in Vught where criminals such as the notorious drug boss Ridouan Taghi are held. He is not allowed to have contact with other detainees, family visits are only allowed behind a window and he is always listened to.
The Committee for the Prevention of Torture has previously called the ECI “excessively restrictive”. But in the Netherlands, politicians want to go even further. For example, a change in the law is in the works that would ban all contact with the outside world and limit the number of lawyers someone can employ to two. After all, Taghi once managed to employ his cousin as a lawyer and to smuggle information out through him. The man was sentenced to 5.5 years in prison.
The other guide country is Italy, where the ’41 bis regime’ has had to keep mafia bosses under control since 1986. Under this carcere duro, prisoners are alone in the cell for 22 hours out of 24. They are allowed to leave the cell for two hours a day for a walk in groups of four. None of the four may belong to the same mafia clan. Visitors are also only allowed behind glass, and only for one hour per month.
The 41 bis regime was originally only for mafia members, but has since been extended to people guilty of terrorism, kidnapping, sexual violence, possessing and distributing images of sexual abuse of minors and child prostitution.
For example, the anarchist Alfredo Cospito, who was convicted in 2012 for a bomb attack on a police academy, was placed under regime in May 2023. In October he went on hunger strike against this. More than 150 days later, he is in very poor health.
The domestic and foreign protests against the harsh 41 bis regime have now gained momentum. The Italian government must even take extra security measures at its embassies and consulates abroad. In Italy itself, there have been repeated clashes between the police and activists.
