Belgian Freed After 20 Years in Egyptian Prison
Leslie Maras, a 53-year-old Belgian from Kontich, has returned home after spending two decades in Egyptian prisons for drug smuggling. His harrowing journey—from a desperate decision born of crushing debt to a life sentence delivered in a language he could not understand, and finally to a presidential pardon—offers a stark look at the harsh realities of Egypt’s justice system and the resilience of the human spirit.
A Desperate Choice
In the early 2000s, Maras ran a snack bar in Sint-Niklaas with his then-wife. The business failed, debts mounted, and his marriage collapsed. “The water was up to my lips,” he recalled in an interview with Het Laatste Nieuws. “And then you make the wrong choices.”
In that vulnerable state, Maras encountered people who offered what seemed like a quick solution: work as a drug courier. “You only want one thing: to leave that suffocating debt crisis behind,” he said. “You justify it to yourself because the need is so great.”
Arrest and Life Sentence
In February 2006, Maras flew from Paris to Cairo with cocaine pellets in his stomach. He was intercepted at Cairo International Airport, possibly tipped off by an informant. X-rays confirmed the drugs, and he was taken into custody—a procedure conducted entirely in a language he did not speak, without an interpreter.
A year later, in February 2007, Maras appeared before an Egyptian court. Surrounded by co-defendants arguing in Arabic, he had no idea what was being decided. Then a Dutch cellmate who spoke English leaned toward him. “Leslie, we got life sentences,” the man said calmly. Maras fainted on the spot.
“The world around me fell away,” he later recalled. “Your mind simply refuses to process what you’ve just heard. Life sentence… You stand there completely defeated.”
Two Decades Behind Bars
Maras was held in multiple Egyptian prisons: Tora Liman, then Qanater, and finally Wadi El-Natrun, a maximum-security complex in the Egyptian desert. Conditions were brutal. In Qanater, prisoners slept on stone beds. “I’m a broad and tall man, but we sometimes got only 40 centimeters of space,” Maras said. “And then there were those blood-sucking insects and bedbugs. Through constant stress, my body broke down.”
Yet Maras also found humanity within the walls. Fellow prisoners shared meals in the Arab tradition, and he built genuine relationships with Egyptian officers. “If you give respect, you get respect back,” he said. He read stacks of Wilbur Smith novels, took up drawing and painting, and eventually became a leader and assistant pastor in the prison church.
In 2011, Maras witnessed the chaos of the Egyptian Revolution from inside his cell. Prisoners rioted and tried to escape, but his facility was too heavily secured. “People ran back in full panic to their rooms and crawled back inside for their own safety,” he remembered. “At such a moment everything goes incredibly fast.”
The Fight for Freedom
Throughout those 20 years, Maras’s parents never gave up. His mother Brigitte, now 77, earned the nickname “The General” in Egypt for her tenacity. “When the embassy initially told us, ‘Oh, life sentence,’ I thought: Nothing of the sort, we’re going to fight!” she said. “I knocked on every door.”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, when travel restrictions prevented the family from visiting, Drs. Cornelis Kees Hulsman—director of the Arab-West Foundation who lives in Egypt—stepped in to maintain the vital human contact. “That human contact in that period, when everything and everyone was locked down, really pulled Leslie through,” said Jan De Cock, founder of vzw Without Walls.
Hulsman eventually enlisted renowned Egyptian lawyer Mona Zulficar, one of the most powerful businesswomen in the Arab world. “When Mona saw via a video call how Brigitte fought like a lioness for her son, she immediately said: ‘I’ll take this case and I don’t need a cent for it,’” Hulsman recounted.
Presidential Pardon and Return
With the help of Belgian Ambassador Bart De Groof, a new pardon request was submitted at the end of 2025. On March 20, 2026, the news arrived: Maras had been granted a presidential pardon. According to the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, this also meant he would not have to serve his sentence further in Belgium.
On March 25, Maras was called before the prison director, who told him in Arabic: “Mabrouk, enta horr”—“Congratulations, you are free.” Fellow inmates, including imprisoned military and police officers, lined up to form an honor guard as he left. “Men with a hard exterior, but with a very white, pure heart inside,” he said. “That moment will stay with me forever.”
But the ordeal was not yet over. Maras spent four additional months in a local police station handling fines and paperwork—a period he describes as the heaviest of his entire 20-year ordeal. “We were packed in like sardines,” he said. “There were days when I thought: Am I still a human being?”
On July 23, 2026, Maras finally landed at Brussels Airport, where his father Frans, Jan De Cock, and Kees Hulsman were waiting to welcome him home.
A Second Chance
Now back in Belgium, Maras faces the challenge of rebuilding a life in a country that has changed dramatically in two decades. The crowds at a shopping center overwhelmed him at first. But he is determined to move forward. “That’s the first thing I want to do: find honest work and pay off my debts properly,” he said.
His story has resonated deeply in Belgium, where it has been covered extensively by outlets including Gazet van Antwerpen, which first reported on his parents’ struggle in 2019 and their hopes in 2021. The case also highlights the severity of Egypt’s drug laws, where life sentences are common for trafficking convictions.
“I am not holy,” Maras said. “But I hope people see that I deserve a second chance. I made a very big mistake. If I could turn back time, it would never have happened.”
His parents waited 20 years for this moment. “My parents waited twenty years for me,” he said. “Now I want to be there for them.”