RECONSTRUCTION. How the euphoria of Olivier Vandecasteele’s release turned into a massive government crisis | Interior

On Friday 26 May, a very emaciated Olivier Vandecasteele looks through a small window of the army plane at the streets and squares of Brussels. Within a few minutes he set foot on Belgian soil again, after 455 days in an Iranian cell without a mattress and with hardly any human contact. The fact that he can embrace his family again on the Melsbroek tarmac is a huge victory for Prime Minister Alexander De Croo (Open Vld). What Vandecasteele and De Croo do not yet know is that this happy moment will plunge the government into a huge crisis. But to understand that, we have to rewind all the way back to the beginning. A reconstruction.