Fatal hazing trial in Belgium :: 18 Reuzegom students who tortured Sanda Dia to death seek to avoid all responsibility. They’re insinuating the victim abused himself by ingesting lots of salty fish sauce. 

The trial to – maybe – bring the torturers of Sanda Dia to justice has finally started. Almost four years after his tragic death as the result of a brutal hazing ritual. The chance we will ever know the truth as to what really happened to him is close to zero. 

These spoilt brats consider themselves to be the elite of Belgium. This became clear in their whatsapp messages. They also addressed each other with the not so subtle words ‘sadists’ and ‘murderers’. 

Sanda Dia was subjected to an endless barrage of disgusting, humiliating,  painful, sickening abuse. The list of what was done to him is shockingly long. It’s too much to mention it all here, but he was peed on, insulted, forced to stand in cold water for hours, outside, in winter, pushed to eat and drink all kinds of filthy stuff, systematically blocked from drinking any water. Even after he couldn’t speak coherently anymore and was reduced to hushed mumbling they did not call an ambulance. When they finally took him to a hospital it was too late. What killed him was an excessive intake of salt. 

Their defense? It was a tradition. He volunteered to undergo the harsh ritual. They could never have known salt could kill a person. Nobody remembers anyone giving him the salty fish sauce. The accused seem to treat this sauce as the murder weapon and nobody wants to have anything to do with it. Apparently it was Sanda Dia who chose to keep drinking the sauce with high salt content. Just like that. Gulp gulp. Until his brain was destroyed. According to the perpetrators they are entirely blameless. And oh! How they have suffered. The poor boys can’t stay in Belgium, because they can’t work on their career here. The ghost of Sanda Dia haunts them. 

If these 18 narcissistic sociopaths had been guys from a poor background they would already be in jail. 

Because they are to the manor born their families have managed to hire some of the most famous legal mercenaries to get these irresponsible power hungry megalomaniacs off the hook. 

Theoretically they risk 15 years in jail. Their battery of hot shot lawyers will fight tooth and nail to avoid that verdict. It’s even doubtful that the people running the Belgian justice system will condemn a group of people they almost certainly identify with. It would have been very different if the accused had been from a background not associated with the ruling class. 

The facts of the case are obvious and undeniable. What they did to Sanda Dia shows no respect for human life. Nor animal life (they also tortured animals during the hazing ritual).

At the very least they are guilty of seriously harming a fellow human being over the course of several days. Am pretty sure they did not intend to kill him, but what they did shows a blatant disregard for the well-being of a fellow human being. Only the most expensive lawyers and a biased justice system could ever make sure that these guys walk away with a light sentence or no punishment whatsoever.

The verdict in this case will tell us a lot about Belgium.