The International Committee ‘In Search of Justice’ (ISJ) demands complete transparency from Belgian authorities following reports that arrest warrants for corrupt Qatari officials involved in the Qatargate money-laundering scandal were rescinded. These actions allegedly took place in exchange for facilitating a deal with Iran to secure the release of a hostage held by Tehran.
According to Belgium’s Le Soir daily, Qatar’s Minister of Labour was targeted by an arrest warrant at the start of the Qatargate judicial investigation after evidence emerged that he had paid hundreds of thousands of euros to Members of the European Parliament and parliamentary assistants. However, the notification for his arrest was apparently suspended last May to help with the exchange of Olivier Vandecasteele, a Belgian national who was being held hostage by Iran, with Assadollah Assadi, Iran’s diplomat-terrorist who was serving a life sentence in Belgium for attempting to bomb the 2018 Free Iran summit in Paris.
POLITICO reports that in the wake of the Qatargate scandal, Belgian prosecutors had initially sought help from police overseas to arrest Qatari Labour Minister Ali bin Samikh Al Marri and his aide Bettahar Boudjellal.
“They requested European arrest warrants and Interpol red notices for Al Marri and Boudjellal on charges of corruption, money laundering and participation in a criminal organization,” POLITICO reports. “By this point, the authorities had also issued new national notifications for the arrest of Boudjellal and Al Marri in Belgium, according to the documents seen by POLITICO.” However, on 16 May 2023, Michel Claise, then the lead investigative judge in the case, lifted both national and international notifications for the arrest of Al Marri.
Iran and Qatar have long been allies. Belgian media claim Al Marri’s warrant had been lifted in exchange for Qatar’s help in negotiating the release of Olivier Vandecasteele, the Belgian humanitarian worker who has been detained in Iran for more than a year. Reports suggest that Tehran threatened that if the minister was arrested, they would not release Vandecasteele. Prime Minister Alexander De Croo has responded by claiming there had “never been any connection with any other case to secure the release of Olivier Vandecasteele” or the three other European citizens released by Iran shortly afterward.
But this is the same Prime Minister who told the Belgian Parliament that a secret agreement signed with Iran months earlier for an exchange of prisoners was never aimed at releasing terrorist Assadi back to Iran. His government told Parliament there was no intention to trade Assadi for Vandecasteele. That claim proved to be a lie, when Belgian succumbed to Iran’s hostage-taking policy and sent Assadi home to a hero’s welcome from his terror masters in Tehran.
In light of this background, the new allegations that Belgium cancelled an arrest warrant for a key Qatargate official as a condition to securing its dirty trade with Iran needs to be investigated. The Prime Minister’s denials are not good enough. Why should we believe someone who has already lied once? In light of the seriousness of the new allegations, ISJ believes that Prime Minister De Croo’s denials are insufficient, given the history of misinformation. ISJ urges an immediate, transparent, and independent parliamentary investigation into the matter, emphasising the need to hold accountable any Belgian officials involved in potential state corruption.
The EU’s longstanding policy of appeasement towards the Iranian regime has emboldened its actions, evidenced by the 9 November 2023 attempted assassination of Dr. Alejo Vidal-Quadras, ISJ’s President and a well-respected veteran European politician. Belgium’s actions not only compromise its own justice system but cast a shadow over European justice and law enforcement. The ISJ calls on the European Union to scrutinise these allegations, ensuring that justice and transparency prevail over any attempts at covert dealings that compromise the principles of democracy and accountability.
STRUAN STEVENSON,
Chair ISJ Committee on the Protection of Political Freedoms in Iran
President of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with Iraq (2009-14) and chairman of Friends of a Free Iran Intergroup (2004-14)
PAULO CASACA,
Member of the European Parliament (1999-2009) Chair of European Parliament’s delegation for relations with the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. Founder and executive director of the “South Asia Democratic Forum”; founder of the international co-operation association ARCHumankind, ‘Alliance to Renew Cooperation among Humankind’.