Family Outraged as Killer in Ziena Kemous Case Granted Electronic Bracelet Release

Berzan Kaplan, the first of the four killers of Ziena, is about to leave prison. Saadia Kemous is in shock after this decision of the Brussels Sentence Enforcement Court. "My soul has been torn from my body. We tried everything to prevent it, but we failed," laments the victim’s sister, adding that "the fact that he is being released only 7.5 years after his assize trial is an affront to us." But in the eyes of his lawyer, Tim Smet, several reasons justify the decision: Berzan "meets all the conditions to continue his reintegration into society outside the prison walls. He has a fixed address, a job prospect, he has been married for some time to someone in prison and he has behaved exemplarily behind bars."

Ziena Kemous - daughter of a Flemish mother and a Moroccan father - had disappeared on June 21, 2012 in Leuven as she was returning home from work. A large search operation had then been carried out and had resulted in the discovery of the body of the 22-year-old young woman on September 13 near the E40 in the Heverlee woods where it had been buried. Ahmet K., aged 19, the young woman’s former partner and father of her child, and a friend, had been arrested and placed under arrest warrant. Two of Ahmet’s cousins, Berzan Kaplan and Akgül Kaplan, had suffered the same fate. Prosecuted for murder, the four perpetrators had each been sentenced to 27 years in prison in a tumultuous assize trial in Leuven in late 2015. They had murdered Ziena because she was an obstacle to Ahmet’s marriage to another girl his family had chosen for him. A "honor killing".