 Brought before the Brussels War Tribunal, he was defended by Paul-Henri Spaak and other leading figures and initially his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment with hard labour.A review by the Auditeur Militaire however uncovered an article he had written condemning the Belgian government-in-exile and reimposed the original sentence.Streel declared "I regret nothing" and insisted that fascism had been essential for Europe in order to avert disaster.