[De Morgen](https://www.demorgen.be/politiek/vandaag-start-proces-tegen-schild-vrienden-dries-van-langenhove-geeft-leden-instructies~b3f39c8b/)

———–

Today the trial starts against Schild & Vrienden, the far-right youth association founded by Dries Van Langenhove in early 2017. He and eight other members are accused of violations of the anti-racism law, some also of negationism. The Vlaams Belang MP is already trying to get all the accused on the same page, according to the instructions he is circulating via WhatsApp.

“Gentlemen, I have had a meeting with lawyer Hans Rieder,” reads the salutation. After which it is made clear what the plan is. “In summary, the plan is that your lawyer will be present at the hearing on September 23, but will do nothing more than simply concur with the conclusions of Hans Rieder.”

The accused members of Schild & Vrienden are best to stay home, according to Van Langenhove. “You yourselves best NOT be present, your lawyer should be present.”

It is noteworthy that Van Langenhove is pushing for lawyers to be replaced if they do not want to go along with the strategy laid out. “Since there are a number of lawyers who, because of a swollen ego, cannot cope with following Hans Rieder’s instructions, it is best that these lawyers are replaced now. If all nine lawyers start doing their own thing, we are going to be left with insanely high costs and with a legal strategy that is much weaker than we have now.”

Van Langenhove concludes by asking for confirmation that everyone has read this. “Also, please put the name of your lawyer and his phone number here. I will personally call your lawyer and explain what is expected.”

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

24 comments

  2. Sure makes him feel innocent of the charges, going through all this trouble to come up with a good strategy. /s

    I really do hope there are some serious consequences coming for them, that little asshole who I unfortunately share a name with needs to be put in his place.

    Edit: obligatory /s, as this was apparently not obvious.

  3. Lol, niet dat ik die mannen noodzakelijkerwijs een geweldig goede verdediging toewens, maar ik hoop dat ze toch genoeg hersencellen hebben om zich juridisch te laten adviseren door hun advocaat en niet door meester Dries. Wat een blaas.

  5. Man, how much of a “follow-our-great-leader” mindset do you have when you are just going to let your legal defense be organized by the lawyer of the person who has the most to lose…

    It would pretty much be the same kind of stupidity of those US Trump fans who stormed the Capitol, and expected Trump to defend them afterwards.

    This trial will end up with DVL being acquitted because the rest of the members “admit” to all the unlawful behaviour…

  8. Never take legal advice from anyone who isn’t your lawyer. And most definitely don’t take legal advice from someone who is directly implicated in your case.

  9. uiteindelijk is dit niet zo’n vreemde strategie, of is iedereen op reddit nu plots ook expert in onze wetgeving?

  11. dus alle advocaten moeten er samen voor zorgen dat driesje buiten schot blijft en zijn “companen” de eventuele straffen op zich mogen nemen…

    hoop dat die gasten of hun ouders niet zo naief zijn hier in te lopen

  13. >”Also, please put the name of your lawyer and his phone number here. I will personally call your lawyer and explain what is expected.”

    Imagine being a lawyer. You’ve been in the business for years, and you’re hired by some rich parents to defend their shitterton kid against a racism complaint.

    Suddenly, you get a call from some young wannabe little shit, who is also being accused of the same stuff, and he starts telling you how to do your job. I wonder how that conversation will go.

  14. “Hey guys 👦, I want you to ditch your lawyer because other strategies than my lawyer’s might actually expose me, bye lads👋.”

  16. Out of all the lawyers from these shitty S&Vers, at least one and probably more will disregard this retarded plan of Driesje and his lawyer. If they don’t, they’re probably shit anyway and won’t be able to build anything resembling a sturdy case.

    Obviously a joke. But it speaks for itself that no trained lawyer gets it in his mind to stop defending their own client to follow orders from the lawyer of their ringleader.

  18. Why do all these lawyers don’t just sit together & come up with e common strategy in stead of having to shut up and follow one of them without even having talked to each other. Sounds like a really bad plan and if I were a lawyer I wouldn’t follow it, just because Dries demanded it 🤷‍♂️

  19. Its not unusual for lawyers of different suspects to coordinate with eachother a little on what the strategy and approach is going to be.

    After all, theres no point in lawyer A going for ‘theres no proof’ when lawyer B intends to go for ‘we dont deny anything but we’ve made a mistake so please be lenient’. Then both parties just look bad as they’re saying contradicting things.

    That being said, your first responsibility is and always will be your own client. If the best thing for your client to do is to admit wrongdoing and plead for leniency then you have to at the very least explain that to them.

    In this case, everyone but DVL has probably considered what I call ‘the seafood defense’. Also known as ‘ik ben maar de kleine garnaal, een meeloper eigenlijk, de echte grote man die ge moet hebben is DVL’.

    Which of course, would be detrimental for DVL, hence him trying to convince everyone to just close ranks and ride it out together. Rather than risk some of them trying to get out while they can with a ‘I know I messed up but I’ve changed, this was mostly ‘meeloperij’ with DVL (and in doing so inevitably weaking DVL’s own arguments, which I’m going to assume are based around denying every allegation or legal technical arguments).

  24. He needs this. Last time he got major press attention, it got him a seat in parliament. The perfect candidate for people who are against the system and multiculturalism.

    But what has he actually done? A few statements about trans rights, a few statements about immigration…

    Nothing new.

    If he doesn’t make a big impact soon, he will fade into irrelevance.

    That is what they will try to do. Paint this as censorship, an attack by the “establishment”,… You better believe there will be drama.

    But the alt right is fading, the alternative facts crowd is focused on covid and vaccines… It may be too late either way.

    And VB will not hesitate to cut him loose if he doesn’t gain them anything anymore.

Leave a Reply