A completely out of hand initiation, racism and a long-drawn-out court case. On Friday, the members of the Belgian student association Reuzegom will hear from the judge whether they are responsible for the death of student Sanda Dia.
An unconscious Sanda Dia, 20, is brought to the emergency room on the late evening of December 5, 2018. The engineering student is severely hypothermic with a body temperature of only 27.2 degrees. According to the doctor who examines him, Dia can no longer speak, only grunts. The student also has an extremely high salt content in his blood.
Shortly after being taken to hospital, he goes into cardiac arrest and falls into a coma. The Belgian student is therefore transferred to another hospital in Antwerp, where he is placed on a machine with an artificial heart and lungs. To no avail. Two days later, Dia dies of brain damage from an overdose of salt.
It will later emerge that the engineering student was taken to hospital by the boys suspected of responsibility for his death. They are members of the Belgian student association Reuzegom, which no longer exists. Dia wanted to become a member and participated in an initiation.
What is Giant Gum?
- Reuzegom was a student association based in Leuven, Belgium. The association mainly focused on prominent families.
- The association already had a bad reputation. For example, years before Dia’s death, the club was already discredited after a video appeared showing how a pig is shot. The animal, Spekkie, was part of an initiation.
- On December 11, 2018, when the association existed for more than seventy years, the association was dissolved. The reason was the death of one of their aspiring members: Sanda Dia.
Almost half a liter of fish oil drunk
The initiation of Dia and eleven other aspiring members of Reuzegom would take three days. The students started the evening in Leuven, where there was partying and drinking. They would also have received humiliating orders from Reuzegom members to prove themselves.
After an evening of heavy drinking, the hazing continued the next day in the Belgian town of Vorselaar. The Reuzegommers had rented a log cabin there. Dia and two other aspiring members had to dig a hole outside. They had to stand in there for hours while it got colder and buckets full of cold water and urine poured over them.
The aspiring members also had to drink a mixture that included fish oil, ground mouse and eel. This is how Dia got the very high salt content in his blood. He had drunk almost half a liter of fish oil. Because it contains so much salt, drinking 250 milliliters of fish oil can be fatal. From whom the engineering student was instructed to drink the oil, it was not clear during the process. The members of Reuzegom told different stories about this to the judge.
A suspect is the son of a senior court official
It took a long time before the eighteen members of Reuzegom were tried, because the judicial investigation into those involved lasted more than a year and a half. At first the investigation was carried out by the court in Antwerp, but it was removed from there.
One of the Reuzegommers is the son of someone who has a high position at the court in Antwerp. To avoid partiality, the file was transferred to Hasselt. In the end, the first trial there only started last year, but it was shut down after a few days.
Sanda Dia’s family thought that the judge should also rule on the days leading up to the fatal night in Vorselaar. But the court in Hasselt decided not to do so. Dia’s family and the Belgian judiciary lodged an objection. The case was then handled again by the court in Antwerp, which could rule on the multi-day initiation. The last session was held in March.
The eighteen members of Reuzegom are being prosecuted for deliberately administering harmful substances resulting in death and degrading treatment. They are also being prosecuted for accidental killing and failure to help someone in need. Depending on their involvement, the Reuzegommers can be sentenced to prison terms of one and a half to four years and two months.
Eleven of the eighteen defendants want a full acquittal
Although they plead moral guilt and have apologized extensively to Dia’s family, eleven of the eighteen defendants are pleading for a full acquittal. The seven other Reuzegommers plead guilty to accidental death, degrading treatment or both. They will hear what the judge decides on Friday.
The case of Sanda Dia is receiving a lot of attention worldwide because of the brutal way in which the engineering student died. Reuzegom was already known for the heavy hazing that aspiring members had to undergo. This is how the association wanted to distinguish itself from other clubs.
The case also received attention because the defendants come from prominent families. According to Sven Mary, the lawyer for the Dia family, there are indications racism at Reuzegom. Members allegedly dressed up as members of the Ku Klux Clan and glorified Hitler. One of the Giant Gommers is said to have been nicknamed ‘Rafiki’ because of his black skin, after the baboon from the film Lion King. “The Reuzegommers are not on trial here for racism and gang formation, but that is certainly the case,” Mary said to Belgian media earlier.
During his closing argument in the last court hearing in March, the lawyer dropped a photo seeing an unconscious Dia. “Laid aside like a dirty object,” said Mary. He showed the photo, with the permission of Dia’s family, to denounce the anonymity of the suspects.
“Enjoy the coming months in which you will be blurred,” the lawyer said to the Reuzegommers. “The Dia family does not benefit from people going to prison, but society does benefit from being able to recognize these young economists, commercial engineers and doctors.”
