Clothes of hazing victim Sanda Dia destroyed without family's consent

"A week and a half ago, we got a phone call from victim support in Turnhout," Papis Dia, Sanda's father, told several newspapers. "They asked if we wanted three bags of Sanda's clothes back. We of course said 'yes'. Every tangible item relating to my son, no matter how painful, I want to hold forever."

Then last Friday, the father was suddenly told that the clothes had already been destroyed. These would include the clothes Sanda Dia wore during the hazing.

"We feel this is so incredibly dreadful," prosecutor Guido Vermeiren told VRT. "We want to treat victims in a correct way, but here we did not do that and I find that extremely regrettable. These clothes should not have been destroyed without the family being contacted beforehand."

So how did this happen? "The colleague handling the case decided that at the conclusion of the investigation the clothes could be destroyed after the final verdict," Vermeiren explains. "These were very dirty clothes. That's why he made that assessment, but it was a wrong assessment. That's where we made a mistake."

That final verdict fell just before summer this year, but it has now transpired that the clothes were destroyed as early as 2020. That is after the investigation was completed, but long before the trial began.

"We thought the clothes were still in existence," the prosecutor explains. "The parents were then contacted, but afterwards it turned out that the clothes were no longer there."