Four years after drug criminals planned to kidnap the Belgian former Minister of Justice Vincent Van Quickenborne, the federal public prosecutor wants to prosecute three Dutch people for attempted hostage-taking. Belgian media write this.
After a new investigation, the Belgian public prosecutor’s office decided on Monday that it still wants to prosecute three of the six suspects for the hostage attempt. The three others are suspected of membership in a criminal organization, the public prosecutor’s office confirmed to the Belgian newspaper Het Nieuwsblad.
On September 22, 2022, Van Quickenborne was told that there was a ‘very concrete threat’ against his person. An extra police patrol had to guard his villa in Kortrijk. Near his home, the police found a car with weapons, zip ties and several bottles of gasoline. The then minister and his family were transferred to a safe house.
Van Quickenborne is said to have been targeted because he was seen as a poster boy for the fight against organized drug crime. He concluded an extradition treaty with Dubai and proved himself an expert in Belgium in the field of cracking encrypted criminal telephones. That triggered a wave of arrests in the country.