Antwerp: the verdict is in for drug baron Nordin El Hajjioui

The investigation, which originated from a routine incident in 2019 - a young woman had accidentally shot herself in an apartment in Zwijndrecht - allowed investigators to trace the trail of a structured network. The searches carried out at the time had revealed an arsenal of weapons and drug stocks, revealing an organization described by the judge as a "well-oiled machine" not hesitating to use violence to secure its activities from abroad.

Seeking refuge in Dubai to escape Belgian justice, El Hajjioui was only extradited in March 2024. His trial, which began in May 2025, ended without his physical presence or that of his lawyers, as the defendant had declared himself ill. The court therefore handed down a default judgment.

Although convicted, the defendant retains the possibility of appealing if he can justify his absence by a case of force majeure. The spokesman for the court specified that it would then be up to the president of the chamber to decide on the admissibility of a new trial.

This 12-year sentence marks the first conviction of El Hajjioui since his return to Belgian soil, but it is far from the last. Several other trials for drug trafficking are already scheduled in Antwerp and Tongres. Given the scale of the accusations in these separate cases, the Moroccan-born man is likely to see his overall sentence increase considerably in the coming months.