Man sentenced to 9 months in jail for sending threatening letters and pigs’ testicles through the post
The Criminal Court in the Flemish Brabant city of Leuven has sentenced a man in his 50s to nine months’ imprisonment and a 1,000-euro fine for sending three threatening letters, two of which contained pigs’ testicles to his former lawyer and his former doctor.
On the 6 and 7 March 2018 the man’s solicitor and the courthouse in Leuven received letters written by the man in which he expressed his frustration about an ongoing case. In order to stress his displeasure pigs’ testicles were sent with the letters. The man suggested that those involved in the case “play with these balls, rather than mine”. The phrase “met iemand zijn ballen spelen” is a vulgar way of saying “to mess someone around”.
A doctor that works for Leuven University Hospital also received a threatening letter from the man on 23 June 2020. The doctor had refused to draft certain documents that had been requested by the man. In the letter the man said, “If I don’t get my documents, I will pay people to put a bullet through your head”.
During the trial the man’s current lawyer told the court that his client had reduced the amount of medication he takes for anxiety at the time that he wrote the letters. Consequently, he had expressed his “mistrust and frustration against society” in an inappropriate way.
Four months of the nine-month prison sentence are suspended.