Why did a Liège court impose a one-year prison term for selling two heroin wraps?
The Liège criminal court sentenced a repeat offender to one year in prison and a €10,000 fine for selling two wraps of heroin in the city centre, a judgment that highlights Belgium’s uneasy balance between prosecuting street dealing and treating severe drug dependency.
The judgment shows how even a very small heroin transaction can lead to imprisonment when a court considers the act to be dealing and takes account of a defendant’s record. It also exposes the practical tension between punishment, proportionality and addiction treatment in a city that has invested in harm reduction.
The sentenced a repeat offender on 9 July 2026 to one year in prison without suspension and a €10,000 fine for selling two wraps of heroin in central , according to . The punishment concerns a small street-level transaction, but its severity appears inseparable from the defendant’s criminal record and the court’s treatment of the act as a sale rather than personal possession. The published account does not identify the man, reproduce the judgment or establish whether an appeal has been filed.
For people in , the case matters because it sits directly on the fault line between public safety, overloaded criminal justice and addiction care. Federal law prohibits the sale and possession of heroin, while the says magistrates can also direct people with problematic drug use towards assistance at every stage of criminal proceedings. The sentence therefore should not be read as establishing that every similarly small transaction attracts a year in prison: Belgian courts determine punishment from the legal classification, record and individual circumstances of each defendant.
The underlying incident was reported much earlier. According to broadcaster , police intercepted a 36-year-old Liège resident at about 11:00 on 13 December 2014 after seeing him sell two heroin wraps on . The broadcaster, citing the Liège prosecutor’s office, reported that he admitted the transaction and said he needed money. That contemporary report described previous convictions but no earlier drug conviction. ’s 2026 description of him as a repeat offender may therefore refer to his broader record or later convictions; the public material reviewed for this article does not resolve that point.
The twelve-year distance between the reported offence and the published sentence is also unexplained. The available reports do not say whether there were intervening proceedings, an absence, procedural delays or a later appeal-stage decision. That gap is important: without the written judgment, it would be unsafe to infer either that an ordinary case took twelve uninterrupted years or that the new Belgian Criminal Code determined the outcome.
’s response to opioid use is wider than courtroom punishment. With the backing of Mayor Willy Demeyer, the city opened , Belgium’s first supervised drug-consumption room, in 2018. ’s historical portal says the facility, operated with the addiction-service expertise of Centre Alfa, was designed for people accustomed to using heroin or cocaine in public. Federal legislation adopted in 2023 subsequently protected staff at authorised consumption rooms from prosecution merely for facilitating drug use within that framework.
That produces two legitimate but different institutional perspectives. The criminal-court perspective treats the transfer of heroin in a public street as unlawful supply, even when the seller is himself dependent and the quantity is limited. The public-health perspective, represented locally by the City of , Centre Alfa and the federally funded Rev-DRoom researchers, treats high-risk users as people who also require supervised access, healthcare and routes into treatment. Belgium’s Federal Justice service explicitly describes national policy as “integrated”, combining enforcement with the possibility of referral to assistance.
The European picture supports that broader reading without diminishing the offence. The says heroin remains Europe’s most commonly used illicit opioid and contributes substantially to drug-related harm. Its 2025 report found opioids present in seven out of ten fatal overdoses for which toxicology was available across 19 EU countries. EUDA also listed supervised facilities in both and Brussels, meaning Brussels the Belgian city in this service context, not simply the seat of EU institutions.
The immediate next step is procedural: confirmation is needed on whether the conviction is final, how the court justified the custodial term, and whether treatment formed any part of the sentence or its execution. More broadly, the case leaves with the same difficult task it has pursued since 2018—protecting public space while recognising that small-scale street dealing by a dependent person can be both a crime and a symptom of entrenched illness and poverty.
Impact
Regional — The case concerns public drug use and street dealing in central Liège. It may renew scrutiny of how the city, police, prosecutors, courts and Walloon addiction-care network divide responsibility between enforcement and treatment.
Local — The case is rooted in Rue de la Régence and the wider city centre of Liège, where authorities must respond simultaneously to street dealing, public drug use and severe dependency. For residents and businesses, the immediate relevance is continued police and judicial enforcement against small street transactions. For local services, the judgment sharpens attention on coordination among the city, police, prosecutors, courts, Såf Ti and Walloon addiction-care providers. It does not announce a new local rule or a change to access at the supervised consumption facility.
What it means for you
For readers in Belgium, the practical message is that selling even two wraps of heroin can be prosecuted as supply and lead to an unsuspended prison term and a substantial fine, particularly where the defendant has prior offences. Drug dependency does not itself convert a sale into personal use or guarantee diversion from punishment. Anyone facing drug-related proceedings should obtain Belgian legal advice and ask promptly whether referral to addiction assistance is available; eligibility and outcomes depend on the individual case. The judgment creates no new deadline, public entitlement or change to Såf Ti’s services.
Opposing perspectives
- Criminal-court and enforcement perspective
The Liège judgment treats the transfer of two heroin wraps as illegal supply rather than mere possession. From this perspective, the small quantity does not erase the public-space offence, while the defendant’s record may justify a firmer response. The complete judicial reasoning remains unavailable.
- Belgian integrated-policy perspective
The Federal Public Service Justice describes Belgium’s approach as “integrated”: prohibition and prosecution coexist with the ability to direct a problematic user towards assistance. This framing recognises dependency without creating a general exemption for street sales.
- Liège harm-reduction perspective
The City of Liège, Mayor Willy Demeyer, Centre Alfa and the Såf Ti model approach visible opioid use partly as a health and social problem. Their response prioritises supervised consumption, contact with services and reduced public harm alongside enforcement.
- EU public-health perspective
The European Union Drugs Agency frames heroin principally through its heavy health burden, overdose risk and need for treatment and harm reduction. That Europe-wide framing adds context but does not determine the proportionality of an individual Belgian sentence.
Who, where and what
Key people, places and terms in this story
Walloon city where the transaction occurred and where the case was judged.
Belgian region containing Liège and its addiction-care network.
Central Liège street where police reportedly caught the defendant selling heroin.
News outlet that reported the 2026 judgment and sentence.
Reported transaction involving two heroin wraps that led to the prosecution.
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Walloon city where the transaction occurred and where the case was judged.
Central Liège street where police reportedly caught the defendant selling heroin.
Belgian region containing Liège and its addiction-care network.
Reported transaction involving two heroin wraps that led to the prosecution.
News outlet that reported the 2026 judgment and sentence.
Court that imposed the reported prison sentence and fine.
Liège supervised drug-consumption facility operating since 2018.
Regional media outlet that reported details of the 2014 arrest.
Federal authority explaining the prohibition on drug sales and possible referral of problematic users to assistance.
Walloon information resource included among the article's contextual sources.
Federal research institution included among the article's harm-reduction sources.
EU agency supplying wider evidence on heroin, opioids and drug-consumption rooms in Europe.
Sources & evidence
- View sourceLa DHPrimaryprimary· dhnet.be· 9 July 2026Retrieved 26 August 2026· 85 days ago· Dated
- View sourceQU4TREcorroborating· qu4tre.be· 15 December 2014Retrieved 26 August 2026· 4309 days ago· Dated
- View sourceBelgian Federal Public Service Justiceofficial· justice.belgium.beRetrieved 26 August 2026
- View sourceConnaître la Wallonieofficial· connaitrelawallonie.wallonie.beRetrieved 26 August 2026
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This briefing was prepared with AI assistance and reviewed by a Belgium Impulse editor before publication. methodology.