Belgian Prosecutors Seek Suspended Sentence for El Kaouakibi

Antwerp prosecutors have requested a 30-month suspended prison sentence and a fine for former Flemish politician and entrepreneur Sihame El Kaouakibi, as her trial on subsidy fraud and forgery charges opened on 1 October at the Antwerp Criminal Court. El Kaouakibi, 40, appeared in person for the first time since the scandal broke more than five years ago, while her partner and co-defendant, Erika Nguyen, did not attend.

According to VRT NWS, the public prosecutor’s office also sought the confiscation of roughly 375,000 euros in subsidies granted by the City of Antwerp and the Flemish Community. For Nguyen, the prosecution requested a two-year suspended sentence and a 20,000-euro fine, half of it suspended.

The Charges

The pair stand accused of subsidy fraud and forgery in connection with Let’s Go Urban (LGU), the youth dance project El Kaouakibi founded, and her private companies Point Urbain and the events venue JJ House. Prosecutors allege that goods and services paid for with public subsidies intended for the non-profit were diverted for private use, including furniture, plants, renovation works, and a custom-built industrial kitchen worth 26,000 euros that was ordered for LGU in late 2018 but installed at JJ House in Antwerp’s Reyndersstraat.

In a lengthy and detailed presentation of the case, the prosecutor argued that the misuse was deliberate rather than careless. “These are serious facts, committed by someone with an exemplary role in the context of a social project, using the community’s money,” the prosecutor said. “These are not administrative sloppiness; there is a systematic pattern to it.”

Prosecutors said invoices were deliberately altered to disguise their true purpose, omitting details and changing recipients so purchases would appear to fall under LGU’s location and subsidy objectives. “One alters invoices, as it were, with digital Tipp-Ex,” the prosecutor said. The HLN reported that the prosecutor described the manipulation as a consistent method, pointing to services that were never actually performed or whose descriptions had been rewritten on invoices.

Disputed Loan Agreements

A central point of contention is the so-called loan agreements under which El Kaouakibi claimed goods were lent to her private entities and would later return to LGU. Prosecutors argue these documents were drawn up after the fact, once questions arose about the finances. Citing police findings, the prosecutor said no one on LGU’s board knew anything about the arrangement, and that an employee who kept an inventory of goods first heard of it only during El Kaouakibi’s press conference alongside former minister Johan Vande Lanotte. Nguyen, the prosecution added, was “clearly a co-perpetrator in the diversion of subsidies,” having been directly involved in asking suppliers to amend invoices and holding a 50 percent stake in Point Urbain.

Trial by Media

The hearing opened with the prosecutor addressing the defence’s anticipated argument that the case should be dismissed because of sustained media pressure and a breach of reasonable time limits. The prosecutor acknowledged the intense public attention but rejected any suggestion that investigators were swayed by it. “A small but loud segment of society and the media passed judgment on El Kaouakibi and her partner from the very start of the investigation, without thorough knowledge of the case. That lynching by part of society is to be regretted,” he said. He added that justice “has not acted under public pressure,” noting that a police unit from outside Antwerp was assigned to conduct a thorough and rapid investigation, and calling the defence’s claim that the force was compromised “outrageous.”

Why the Sentence Is Suspended

The prosecutor explained that he sought fully suspended sentences because the scale of the fraud, while serious, was smaller than initially expected, and because public funds are scarce. He also cited a mitigating factor: El Kaouakibi has a clean criminal record. He noted that she had held an exemplary role as a parliamentarian and had, through her conduct, harmed what he called a fine social project.

The case has been more than five years in the making. LGU received roughly 5 million euros in subsidies from 2014, including funds for renovating the Kielpark hall. The scandal erupted in early February 2021 after an internal audit commissioned by the City of Antwerp raised serious questions about the organisation’s bookkeeping. LGU and several related entities were declared bankrupt later that year. El Kaouakibi, then an elected member of the Flemish Parliament for Open Vld, withdrew from active politics as the scandal unfolded.

What’s Next

The trial is scheduled for 1 and 2 October, with the defence expected to plead on the second day. The court must now weigh the prosecution’s request against the defence’s procedural objections and its account of the facts. Whatever the outcome, the case has become a landmark test in Flanders of how allegations of political subsidy fraud are balanced against the pressures of intense public scrutiny.