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Antwerp court adjourns high-profile drugs case amid questions over Sky ECC intercept
Defence lawyers ask court to adjourn after unexplained changes found in evidence files containing intercepted messages from Sky ECC encrypted phone network infiltrated by French and Dutch police
A court in Belgium has adjourned a high-profile criminal case after defence lawyers raised questions about the integrity of intercept data obtained by police in a hacking operation against the Sky ECC encrypted phone network.
The Antwerp Regional Court adjourned the hearing into multiple defendants accused of drug trafficking offences last week, after defence lawyers found that electronic intercept evidence files had been changed without explanation during the course of the trial.
The investigation centres on a high-profile drug kingpin, Nordin El Hajjioui – known as Dikke “Fat” Nordin – who is accused of running a criminal drugs gang that imported narcotics though Antwerp alongside multiple other defendants.
The prosecution relies on messages intercepted by French, Dutch and Belgian police from a hacking operation into the Vancouver-based encrypted phone network, Sky ECC, in 2020, which provided real-time access to messages exchanged between members of organised criminal groups.
Some 1,600 Belgian law enforcement officers took part in raids on premises linked to drugs, money laundering and bribery in March 2021, after police infiltrated Sky ECC’s servers in France and decrypted “hundreds of millions” of supposedly encrypted messages.
Evidence files changed
Defence lawyers in the trial in Antwerp claim they belatedly discovered the electronic evidence files used in the case from Sky ECC had been adjusted, and that they have been provided with no explanation for the changes.
Justus Reisinger, a defence lawyer in the case, said that rules introduced in Belgium that prevent lawyers from seeing clients held in detention from bringing computer equipment into meetings meant the changes in the prosecution evidence had gone unnoticed until last week.
He told Computer Weekly the original electronic evidence files had been modified to include an Excel file containing 50,000 more lines of intercepted messages and “hundreds of megabytes” more data.
During a hearing on 20 November, prosecutors were unable to give an explanation, and denied that the contents of the files had been changed, leading the court to adjourn the case for further investigation.
“It is quite telling that the court is saying we have to adjourn the hearing for two months in a case like this, but there is just no other possibility,” said Reisinger.
He said there were now questions over the integrity of the Sky ECC data used as evidence in the case.
“Is the data acquired by France during the initial interception the same data that is presented to court?” asked Reisinger. “We have to see whether or not that has been proven by the prosecutor.”
Read more about the Sky ECC hacking operation
- Belgian police raid 200 premises in drug operation linked to breach of encrypted phone network.
- Police crack world’s largest cryptophone network as criminals swap EncroChat for Sky ECC.
- Arrest warrants issued for Canadians behind Sky ECC cryptophone network used by organised crime.
- Cryptophone supplier Sky Global takes legal action over US government website seizures.
- Sky ECC provided free cryptophones to a Canadian police force.
- Ex-boxer fights US government over legality of Sky ECC cryptophone intercepts.
- Dutch lawyers raise human rights concerns over hacked cryptophone data.
- French court ruling may lead to legal challenges over state Sky ECC and EncroChat phone hack.
Defence lawyers have also complained that surveillance cameras introduced in Dutch prisons make it impossible for lawyers to share documents with their Dutch clients in a confidential way, as they are always in view of cameras.
Louis de Groote, a defence lawyer in the Antwerp case, said: “In the rooms where we have the meetings with the clients, there are now cameras facing towards the client, towards us, and from above, so they can see whatever is going on in the documents.”
He said it was a breach of defendants’ rights to a fair trial.
Nordin El Hajjioui is alleged to have started smuggling drugs as a 20-year-old in Antwerp before fleeing to Dubai in 2016, where he ran what a judge described as a “well-oiled criminal organisation” operating in Belgium and the Netherlands.
Defence lawyer Hans Rieder, who also represents El Hajjiou, said the prosecutor’s recommendation of a 35-year prison sentence for his client was “unheard of”, and more about making a “show” than the law.
The case is due to resume in January 2026.
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