© De an Sun via Unsplash
Freddy Horion, the notorious Belgian six-time murderer, has been released from prison after 47 years, according to Het Laatste Nieuws. On Monday, he was transferred to a secure unit at the forensic care center in Rekem, a borough of Lanaken in the province of Limburg, Belgium. There, he is being prepared for a possible return to society, including through the use of an ankle monitor and strict supervision.
Freddy Horion was sentenced to life in prison in 1980 for, among other things, the 1979 family murder in Sint-Amandsberg, in which six people were killed, as well as for the murder of a shopkeeper in Ghent. His release came after years of legal proceedings: in 2018, psychiatrists determined that he no longer belonged in prison, and judges later ruled that Belgium had treated him inhumanely by failing to provide an appropriate rehabilitation program.
Despite an expert opinion from 2018 recommending placement in a forensic psychiatric center, Horion was unable to secure his release for twenty years. After a legal battle, the Antwerp Court of Appeal ordered in 2023 that the Belgian state must release him from prison. After the Court of Cassation rejected the state’s appeal, this had to be done within six months, under penalty of a 1,000-euro daily fine for each day of delay. That fine has since risen to approximately 750,000 euros, but Horion has not yet claimed that amount. Yet, so far, he has had nowhere to turn to.
Freddy Horion, now 78 years old, is the person who has spent the longest time in prison in Belgium, second only to one other individual. In 1980, he was sentenced to death by the Court of Assizes in Ghent, and that sentence was automatically commuted to life imprisonment. Together with his accomplice Roland Feneulle, Horion was found guilty of the June 1979 murder of five members of a family in Sint-Amandsberg, a suburb of Ghent. The victims were a father and mother, their two daughters aged 13 and 22, and the 24-year-old fiancé of the eldest daughter. He had no motive for the murders; he stated that he had chosen them at random and committed the murders out of “anger at society.” It later emerged that he had also murdered a shopkeeper in 1979.
Feneulle died in October 2013 at the age of 60, after serving 34 years in prison.
The decision to place Horion in a care facility has drawn fierce criticism, including from the Mayor of Lanaken, who disapproves of Horion’s stay in his municipality. He would have preferred to see him sent abroad. “I am strongly opposed to Horion being here,” says Mayor Marino Keulen. “We’re talking about someone who was sentenced to death and has six deaths on his conscience. The fact that he has now been admitted to Rekem is entirely the responsibility of the care center’s management.”
The care center says everything went smoothly and now intends to guide him through a careful process, without specifying how long that will take.
Illustration: © De an Sun via Unsplash