Belgium was in shock today after images appeared of a man arrested by police shortly before he died – while officials laughed and one of them gave a Nazi salute.
The death of Joseph Chovanec in the wake of his arrest in February 2018 has been compared to the death of George Floyd in the United States.
Chovanec was picked up from a plane in Charleroi after refusing to show a ticket when he boarded, and taken to a holding cell where footage showed him banging his head against the wall until his face was heavy. blooms.
One police officer sat on his chest for 16 minutes while a laughing female officer greeted the ‘Hitler salute’, before Chovanec died the next day in hospital.
The Belgian government has reacted with shock after images of the arrest of the Slovak passenger came to light.
“This is unusual and completely shocking,” Justice Minister Koen Geens told Flemish broadcaster VTM.
Minister of the Interior Pieter De Crem said that ‘it is something out of all proportion. The circumstances need to be clarified and an investigation is underway.
Chovanec was refused boarding at the airport after failing to show a ticket and disrupting behavior.
In the detention room, the security video shows him banging his head against the wall several times.
Several officers later enter the room to handcuff him, and if this does not calm him down, they return to torture him.
During this sequence, a female officer is seen dancing in the cell and making a Nazi salute.
Jealousy: A female police officer strikes a Nazi post in February 2018 footage recently unveiled in Belgium
Arrest: Officers laughed while Slovak suspect Joseph Chovanec was detained in a holding cell. He died the next day in hospital
Chovanec was later taken to the hospital, where he died the next day, officially from a heart attack.
His widow Henrieta complained to the newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws, which first published the video, that the officials should have cared more about his urgent health needs, because he was apparently in need and had to breathe.
Chovancova said the investigation was taking too long, and told the newspaper De Morgen: ‘I’m just sad.
‘It makes me feel even more that they were trying to sweep my husband’s death under the rug, as if he were ashes that had to disappear,’ she said.
According to her legal team, Chovancova chose to make the video public against her advice, after she became frustrated with the investigation.
“Our client wanted to show these images to the world because she has no confidence in the criminal investigation,” said Lennert Dierickx, a member of the legal team led by Ann Van De Steen.
The Belgian incident in February 2018 has been compared to the death of George Floyd in the United States (pictured, Floyd is appointed by white cop Derek Chauvin)
Belgian media say the female officer who made the Nazi salute has resigned from operational duties.
A full investigation is underway, which means she could still be shot or fired, a spokesman said.
Geens, the justice minister, said the probe had to do with delays due to the pandemic and because the defense asked to take more investigative action.
The issue has caused particular outrage over his echoes of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis in May.
Floyd, an unarmed black man, died after a white cop pressed his knee to his neck for nearly eight minutes, despite Floyd’s pleasure that he could not breathe.
Four Minneapolis police officers were accused of Floyd’s death, which gave an unusual worldwide account of racism and police violence.
Belgium was hit in June when activists removed a statue of King Leopold II, the ruler responsible for Belgian atrocities in the Congo.
Leopold, who ruled from 1865 to 1909, amassed an enormous personal fortune while the Congolese were murdered or brutally abused on his rubber plantations.
American author Adam Hochschild claimed in his 1998 book King Leopold’s Ghost that the death toll from Leopold’s policy was as high as 10 million Congolese.
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