The Court of Appeal in Ghent (East Flanders) has acquitted a jeweller of manslaughter committed under provocation, accepting that he acted under compulsion. Previously the Court of First Instance in Ghent had given the man a 10-month suspended prison sentence and fined him 800 euro.
In 2018 two robbers raided a jewellery shop in Oostakker, near Ghent. They threatened the shopkeeper, his sister and his father. The robbers made their escape on a moped. The jeweller ran after them and shot one of robbers. The robber died of his injuries.
The Court of First Instance in Ghent convicted the jeweller and sentenced him to 10 months imprisonment, all of which suspended, as well as fining him 800 euro. The court ruled that there was insufficient proof that he acted in self-defence and under an irresistible compulsion. The jeweller appealed and the Court of Appeal has now acquitted him as it accepts that he acted under irresistible compulsion.
The court took into account that the robbery was very brutal and violent. It left the jeweler traumatised. "The court considers it very plausible that the jewellery shot at the runaway robbers because this acute psycho-trauma disabled his free will and rational thinking capacity”.