From life imprisonment in Brussels to life in Tangier: The incredible destiny of Mounir Iben Lakhal

Faced with the consequences of his heavy criminal conviction in Belgium, Mounir Iben Lakhal now resides in Tangier where he is trying to rebuild his life after more than twenty years of detention. This man, who served a life sentence of hard labor handed down by the Brussels Assize Court on March 20, 1992, is now striving to integrate socially into Moroccan society, far from the criminal past that marked his youth.

The facts that led to his incarceration date back to the late 1980s. Mounir Iben Lakhal was found guilty of a series of forty-five assaults and thefts targeting octogenarians in several Brussels municipalities, two of whom succumbed to their injuries. At the time, investigators were tracking down an individual who would break into his victims’ homes under false pretenses before assaulting them to steal money and jewelry. During his trial, the defendant’s background was described as that of a child deprived of affection, who had suffered serious abuse during his early years in Saint-Gilles, where he claims he was locked up and chained in an attic by his mother, reports La Dernière heure.

After spending nearly twenty-one years behind bars, Mounir Iben Lakhal was granted conditional release on July 4, 2010. This release from prison was accompanied by a measure banning him from Belgian territory for a period of ten years, forcing him to settle in Morocco. Although born in Fez, the person concerned experienced this transfer as a total change of scenery, knowing very little about his country of origin that he had left during his childhood. He even confessed to feeling closer to Belgian culture than the Moroccan reality upon his arrival.

The initial phase of his resettlement in Morocco was marked by great precariousness, he says. Rejected by his biological father and not having received the promised assistance from certain family members, he went through a very difficult period for eighteen months, sleeping on the street and struggling to survive. Mounir Iben Lakhal also raises a financial issue related to Belgian social benefits which, according to him, have been intercepted by a third party without his knowledge for the past fifteen years.

Now 55 years old, Mounir Iben Lakhal has stabilized his professional situation by working in call centers in Tangier serving the Belgian market. Leading a solitary life and earning a monthly salary of 4,500 dirhams, he considers this income sufficient to meet his basic needs.