ILIAS CHAIR was able to start against Rotherham just a day after receiving a two-year jail sentence because Belgian prisons are currently over-crowded.
The QPR midfielder was found guilty by an Antwerp court of breaking a man’s skull with a rock after he and his friends got into a row with a trucker as they made their way back from a kayaking trip in northern France in 2020.
As well as paying the victim £13,400 compensation for his injuries, he was sentenced to 12 months in prison with a further 12-month suspended sentence.
Chair is appealing the sentence.
In Britain, such jail terms are usually imposed immediately.
But the Belgian system has been hampered by a massive over-crowding problem in the country’s jails in recent years.
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Until September 2022, anybody handed less than three years jail time would not see a single day behind bars.
Last September, laws were tightened further so that those with shorter “effective” sentences were meant to spend at least some of that time locked up.
But with the over-crowding still a factor, the practicality is that those with a sentence of less than two years can ask to be punished outside of jail.
Belgians generally serve only one third of their allotted time and the last six months of that can be outside prison with electronic surveillance – effectively the entirety of any jail time under 18 months.
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The club released a statement on Friday stating it could not comment because the legal matter was still ongoing and before the end of the game were unable even to give any indication as the exact position of Chair’s case.
The Morocco international has been training and playing for the club as usual throughout the legal proceedings and manager Marti Cifuentes has insisted he will continue to select him all the time he is available.
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
