The court sentenced a 21-year-old Hungarian man to 40 months in prison for smuggling cannabis.[1] Customs officers had found 7.5 kilograms of cannabis in his suitcase.[1] The court left the penalty at the standard 40 months.[1]

The young man had landed on 2 August on a flight from Bangkok, the Thai capital.[1] When customs checked his baggage, officers found 16 plastic-wrapped packages totalling 7.5 kilograms of cannabis.[1] The prosecution said he claimed that he had not checked in the suitcase himself and did not know what was in it.[1] Prosecutors said he had only been asked to carry the suitcase in exchange for his plane ticket and stay in Thailand, which they called hardly credible.[1]

The prosecution had sought a 40-month prison sentence the previous month, while the defence had hoped for leniency.[1] The defence said the unemployed client had been promised a job in Thailand, waited weeks in a hotel without work, was pressured to carry the suitcase back via Brussels where he would receive money to return to Hungary, and saw no other solution after trying to refuse.[1]