Belgian foreign minister accused of involvement in loss of Libyan funds from Belgian banks

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Brussels, Belgium, September 22 (Infosplusgabon) – Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Didier Reynders is cited directly by ex-safety agent, Nicolas Ullens de Schooten, who accused him of being involved in the disappearance of the Libyan funds in Belgium, the Belgian media reported on Thursday.

 

At a time when these revelations were made, the name of the accuser, Nicolas Ullens Schooten, was not mentioned publicly as a preliminary judicial investigation had been opened.

 

After the assassination in 2011 of Libyan leader, Mouamar Gaddhafi, during massive bombardments on Libya, the United Nations had seized Libyan assets abroad estimated at 400 billion of sovereign funds belonging to that country.

 

The UN had placed those funds in several banks including $14 billion in Belgium where they were frozen. Despite the ban imposed on banks to lift the freeze of those assets years ago, Belgium ordered the transfer of $1.4 billion, representing 10% of the interest generated by half of the funds placed in Belgian banks.

 

It is reported that all that huge money completely disappeared. Some tracks are visible on the payments to some Belgian companies who did works in Libya, but without ever retracing the totality of the missing amount.

 

UN experts fear that the disappeared money was transferred to Libyan armed groups who would have used it to purchase arms. It is known that heavy weapons, including fighting tanks, landed at night at the Port of Tripoli, a city where fierce fighting broke out between the army of the Government of National Accord based in Tripoli and the forces backing Marshall Khalifa Haftar who took control of the city of Benghazi.

 

 

 

The UN is still looking for the armed groups that benefited from the interests of half of the Libyan sovereign fund kept in Belgium.

 

 

 

In addition, Nicolas Ullens de Schooten, accuses  Reynders of receiving bribes from companies which had contracts on the ultra modern building that accommodates the Belgian embassy in Kinshasa. The materials used for the construction of that building came from Belgium and were taken to DRC by planes or boats.

 

 

 

These affairs, as well as others are in the hands of the Belgian justice.

 

 

 

The author of the accusation told the press that he made those revelations because he does not accept that Reynders, who would have committed such serious crimes, to become European Commissioner for Justice.

 

 

 

The European Parliament, which must, at the end of the month-long hearing of all new commissioners designated for the European Commission to be chaired by German Ursula von der Leyen, not fail to raise the issue concerning Reynders.

 

 

 

For now, nothing indicates that the current Belgian foreign affairs minister could be turned down by Euro MPs who are very demanding on the past of European commissioner candidates.

 

 

 

FIN/INFOSPLUSGABON/ABR/GABON2019

 

 

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