Cambodia and Belgium negotiate convict transfer treaty

Buth Reaksmey Kongkea

The justice ministries of Cambodia and Belgium are negotiating to prepare a transfer treaty in order to repatriate a Belgian man convicted of trafficking cocaine in Cambodia to prison in his home country.

He will be transferred from Cambodia later this year. 

Chin Malin, Secretary of State and the Spokesman at the Ministry of Interior, told Khmer Times yesterday that Cambodia received a request from the Belgian Minister of Justice asking to transfer a Belgian citizen named Tanguy Eddie J. Taller to prison in Belgium.

Malin said that up to now Cambodia and Belgium do not yet have any formal prisoner exchange treaties with each other to transfer suspects or convicts.

However, he added both countries are negotiating and preparing to sign an exchange treaty aiming to transfer convicts between both countries in the future.

“As a principle of law, in order to transfer or extradite any suspect or convict from Cambodia to other countries if it is requested, first we must have a treaty with those countries making requests,” Malin told Khmer Times.

“So both countries’ legal working teams are negotiating now with each other to prepare the treaty in order to transfer the Belgium drug smuggler from Cambodia to serve out his sentence in his country,” he added. 

Media reports that Belgian Minister of Justice Paul Van Tigchelt said last week that Cambodia has indicated that it is prepared to “negotiate a transfer treaty”.

“This is the only means of action I have at my disposal to get Tanguy Taller to Belgium. A video conference will be organised shortly for a discussion with the Cambodian authorities,” Paul Van Tigchelt said.

Justice Minister Van Tigchelt says that the justice ministry has attempted for some time to get Mr Taller back to Belgium, adding that he contacted Cambodian authorities last year to take action and received a positive response.

According court documents, Tanguy Eddie J. Taller was sentenced on December 18, 2018 by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court to a life sentence in prison on a charge of drug trafficking involving transport of one kilogramme of cocaine into Cambodia. 

He added that, “We will not abandon our fellow countrymen. I recently sent a letter to my colleague in Cambodia asking for a transfer agreement. It’s not the first time we’ve asked that question. Such a treaty is the only concrete means of action that I have as Minister of Justice. If there is agreement, things can happen quickly. Tanguy Taller has been definitively convicted in Cambodia, I cannot overturn that.”

Taller – originally from Bruges – has been proclaiming his innocence for more than five years after he was convicted in person after first being convicted in absentia in June 2018 after he fled from authorities and was then was arrested on October 4 at the Cambodia-Vietnam International Checkpoint in Bavet city, Svay Rieng province.

His accomplice David Catry Noel, died in Prey Sar from a severe asthma attack on the night of April 29th, 2022.

In December Taller declared the Belgian State in default because he believed that they had let him down.

His lawyer, Bert Vanmechelen, stated “It is a horror situation there for Tanguy, especially because the detention conditions are so dire. In prison he lives among people with tuberculosis, scabies, hepatitis and HIV. I don’t have to tell you how inhumane that is.”

He was charged with “drug trafficking and transport” under Article 40 of Cambodia’s Law on Drugs Control.

Tanguy Eddie J. Taller was arrested on October 4, 2019 in the Cambodian-Vietnamese-Border, in Svay Rieng Province’s Bavet city,   after he had crossed the border from Vietnam and checked-in with the Cambodian immigration police office inside Cambodian territory.

Tanguy Eddie J. Taller was arrested in accordance with the court’s arrest warrant and according to David Catry Noel’s confessing answers.  

According to the court’s document, police in the anti-drug department in the Ministry of Interior on January 10, 2018 arrested David Catry Noel, 34, after had flown from Brazil, arrived and checked-in at the Phnom Penh International Airport. 

After his arrest, police seized   a total 1,003. 24 grams (more than 1 kilograms) of cocaine  put in plastics and hidden under the bottom of his suitcase.

 At police interrogation, David Catry confessed that the drugs seized from him belonged to Tanguy Eddie J. Taller.