"Reynders weakened the rule of law"

Source: medor.coop

Publication date: 29 November 2019

Alexis Deswaef is the lawyer for Nicolas Ullens de Schooten, a former State Security agent. The latter accused Minister Didier Reynders, the new European commissioner, and Jean-Claude Fontinoy, his right-hand man, of corruption. He claims that he was muzzled from 2015. The lawyer explains why, in his eyes, the Ullens "case" is a state scandal.

Lawyer Alexis Deswaef surprised some of his colleagues, including in his very "human rights" Brussels firm, when he agreed to defend the man who accuses Didier Reynders and Jean-Claude Fontinoy: Nicolas Ullens de Schooten , a former State Security agent. Deswaef, “the lawyer for undocumented migrants”, has just been elected vice-president of the FIDH (International Federation of Human Rights Leagues), after having presided over the Belgian league. Why is he embarking on such an adventure? How to prove such allegations?

Quick reminder of the sequence: in April 2019, Nicolas Ullens balance what he has to the police. Indications, names – that of Reynders and Fontinoy – which recur in the files he follows from his position as an agent of the intelligence services. He then evokes the Kazakhgate, the affair of the “Libyan funds”, the move of the federal police to a building sold by the State to a private firm or even the construction of the Belgian embassy in Kinshasa. Faced with the police, agent Ullens claims to have been sidelined in August 2015, right when a member of the Reynders cabinet was appointed No. 3 of the Sûreté. Serious charges.

Reynders is a political heavyweight. The Belgian government chose him to represent our country at the European Commission. Is it for (all) that that the Brussels public prosecutor closes the file without duty of investigation, last September?

A "machination"

Nicolas Ullens has meanwhile spoken to Alexis Deswaef. Together, they then decide to continue. They filed a complaint against X, on September 30, with the federal prosecutor's office. This time, it is a question of obstruction to its investigations, harassment at the Security and death threats at the Committee R, the body of control of the services. Just that… This file is still alive. Lawyer Deswaef sees his client as a "whistleblower", confronted with what he calls a "machination". He claims that maneuvers unworthy of a democratic state were used to silence his client. He blames his own country. And targets among others the new European Commissioner Didier Reynders, in charge of Justice and the protection of the rule of law within the Commission of Ursula von der Leyen, formally in place from this Sunday, December 1st. For Alexis Deswaef, clearly, the action of Didier Reynders in these files is in contradiction with his new skills. It has weakened the rule of law.

This whole affair is very complex and delicate. It is "his" version that is detailed here, for the first time...

alexisdeswaef-1.jpg

Attorney Alexis Deswaef.

Colin Delfosse. CC BY-NC-ND

Médor: Why did you agree to defend the former State Security agent, Nicolas Ullens de Schooten?

Alexis Deswaef: The approach of Nicolas Ullens, which I did not know, is the defense of democracy and the rule of law. In his work as an investigator at the Sûreté, over a long period from 2007 to 2018, he claims to have witnessed serious dysfunctions at the highest level of the State in cases of corruption and money laundering. And being prevented from investigating. The elements he shows me are perfectly credible and they have been confirmed to me by people outside the intelligence services. These people being part, themselves, of the cogs of the State. As lawyers, we take an oath to defend only just causes. Those that we consider just, in soul and conscience. This is one.

What is he really after accusing Reynders of corruption?

His cause is for the common good. Citizens are the victims of these mafia practices involving great "servants of the state" ( he insists on the quotation marks ). They are made to the detriment of the taxpayer and have the consequence of weakening social security, depriving education of means or forcing budget cuts in culture. Millions are lost in corruption as well as via the enrichment of real “real estate developers” raging in the circles of power. Belgium often takes the liberty of denouncing behavior contrary to the rule of law in foreign countries. Why not open your eyes here, too?

"He was told not to investigate political files anymore."

You say Ullens was prevented from investigating. Mentioned physical threats to him. What are you basing this on?

From 2014-2015, he began to take an interest in two names, coming back to his eyes in several political and financial files (among others, the move of the federal police, the "Kazakhgate", the unfreezing of Libyan funds, real estate developments around SNCB stations and the construction of the Belgian embassy in Kinshasa): Deputy Prime Minister Didier Reynders and his right-hand man Jean-Claude Fontinoy, who is also president of SNCB. He first turned to his hierarchy at the Sûreté. The very one who was harassing him, according to him. There was nothing to hope for on that side, but Nicolas Ullens respected the forms. Then he addressed the “Comité R” which must control the intelligence services.

In 2016, he was finally heard at the R Committee and there, the torpedoing work of his investigations continued. He was told not to investigate political files any longer. We will end up transferring him to the "jihadism" service... At the R Committee, Nicolas Ullens says that after his hearings and before being formally heard by the director of investigations, Frank Franceus, labeled N-VA, the latter told him " to take care of him, his wife and his children. I ask that all clarity be made on this matter. It is up to the courts to determine whether these threats were real, both at the Sûreté, where he says he was harassed, and at the Comité R.

"Degoul's 5 million: did they really stay in Paris?"

The Kazakhgate is a file on which your client would have worked a lot. As a reminder, in 2011, Belgium would have done a favor for Kazakh businessmen by extending the penal transaction law, at the request of Sarkozy's France. This wanted to ensure a large military order from Kazakhstan and please its president. Is this the cause of Agent Ullens's troubles?

The Kazakhgate case is not only a case of political interference to change the law on criminal transaction. It's a corruption file. For example, French justice has clearly established the delivery of 5 million in cash in December 2011 by Patokh Chodiev, the best known of the "Kazakh trio", to his lawyer Catherine Degoul. This money, no doubt intended to corrupt, was handed over to a hotel in Zurich, Switzerland. The judicial investigation revealed that a conveyor claimed to bring the money back to Nice, to the lawyer Degoul, therefore working for the Kazakhs and chosen by the Elysée for the maneuvers in the shadows. But the analysis of the facts reveals that the conveyor used his gas card in the direction of Paris. Not south. A year earlier, 800,000 euros, also in denominations of 500, were delivered to Paris through Chodiev's driver. We don't know if the cash went back to Brussels afterwards, but there is a great doubt given the Franco-Belgian connections that we observe in this file and the fact that the courier admits that he also came to Brussels in two occasions.

“I can only note that Didier Reynders did not tell the truth”

Should the Belgian investigation have succeeded on this point? Did we block it? To protect Didier Reynders, as your client says?

Since there were his initials in the diary of lawyer Catherine Degoul, on February 2, 2012, alongside those of Armand De Decker (indicted for influence peddling in the Kazakhgate, editor's note), Didier Reynders I had to admit that there had been a meeting between the three in the Belgian Senate. It was three days after lawyer Degoul's visit to the Elysée and thirteen days before she returned. But they didn't talk about the plea bargain law, he said. Otherwise, he claims he never met her. But I ask the question: why does Catherine Degoul complain of not having received her fees, barely two months later, by adding Didier Reynders and the French Minister of the Interior Claude Guéant to the list of recipients?

A witness heard in the French part of the Kazakhgate affirms that it is precisely through these two ministers that the contacts were made. As a lawyer for Nicolas Ullens, faced with the elements arising from the statements of each other, I can only note that Didier Reynders did not tell the truth in the face of the “Kazakhgate” parliamentary inquiry commission. I told the French investigating judge, Aude Buresi, in charge of the investigation in Paris. And I say this in the face of the Belgian magistrates who are still working on their side on the same file, despite the death of Armand De Decker. Didier Reynders is not the only one. Others also lied before the parliamentary commission of inquiry, such as his right-hand man Jean-Claude Fontinoy, who had denied having been in contact with French Kazakhgate protagonists,

He had an informant at the Reynders office. We grilled it.

Is it proven that your client could have helped the justice system in various corruption cases if he had been able to maintain contact with his informants?

That's what he explains. As an agent of the Security, he collects intelligence, sometimes from informants within the State apparatus. It is then up to the courts to do their job of finding evidence. Here, in different files, it could not work as it should in a democracy.

Is it true that one of his informants was a member of the Reynders cabinet?

Yes, apparently. The judicial authorities now know his name and his background. He was not reappointed in the last Reynders cabinet, in 2014.

And at the Sûreté, have we cut off contact between Ullens and this informant?

I have no reason to doubt it. He explains that the Sûreté “grilled” this informant and also prohibited him from working with a second.

How do you see the rest of this file?

At the beginning, in September, I thought that everything would go very quickly, so serious and heavy is it, what is in these files. Now I understand that it will be long.