Belgian prisoner will not be euthanized after all

Prisoner Frank Van den Bleeken, who was due to undergo euthanasia on Sunday after serving 30 years in prison for rape and murder, will instead be transferred to a new psychiatric treatment centre in Ghent, federal justice minister Koen Geens announced yesterday. Van den Bleeken will ultimately have his wish to be transferred to a care facility in the Netherlands realised.

Van den Bleeken, who is housed in the medical wing of the prison in Turnhout, would have been the first prisoner in Belgium to receive euthanasia after his request was granted last year. His request was due to “intolerable psychological suffering” due to receiving no mental health care in the prison system for 30 years.

The European Court for Human Rights in Strasbourg has condemned Belgium 14 times for failing to provide mental health care for mentally ill detainees. Van den Bleeken claims nothing has been done to curb the dangerous impulses that led him to commit his crimes.

The euthanasia procedure was set to take place in Bruges on January 11, but Geens said that Van den Bleeken will instead be transferred to the forensic psychiatric centre (FPC) in Ghent (pictured). The centre, which opened last spring, has about 30 patients, all of them criminal detainees, with the number due to rise this year to 264.

Following a period of evaluation, a course of suitable treatment will be determined, said Geens. For Van den Bleeken, that could mean another transfer to the Pompe Foundation facility in Nijmegen, the Netherlands.

Van den Bleeken rejected a previous offer of a place in FPC Ghent, a project which was still in the construction phase when he filed for the right to euthanasia. He was prepared to suspend his euthanasia request if he were transferred to the Pompe Foundation. However, Belgium and the Netherlands have no protocol for such a transfer.

“Very recent intense contacts” with Dutch justice minister Fred Teeven, said Geens, “offer the clear possibility of a rapid transfer” to the Nijmegen facility. Geens has been working to develop new avenues of treatment for long-term detainees with psychiatric problems. There are approximately 1,150 such prisoners in Belgium who are housed in ordinary prisons.

The minister will prepare a plan for the organisation of facilities for long-term psychiatric detainees “that conform to modern criteria and that respond to the criticisms and numerous condemnations the country has undergone from the European Court of Human Rights,” he said.