Justice Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne announced his resignation on Friday evening at a press conference attended by Brussels Prosecutor-General Johan Delmulle.
His resignation followed information received on Friday morning concerning the perpetrator of Monday's terror attack in Brussels.
On 15 August 2022, Tunisia had requested the extradition of Abdessalem Lassoued. Belgium's Justice Ministry forwarded the request on 1 September 2022 to the Brussels Public Prosecutor’s Office, but it was not processed: the competent magistrate did not act on the extradition request.
A total of 31 extradition requests were transmitted to the magistrate in question in 2022. Of these, 30 were processed, but the one concerning Lassoued was not.
'An indivdual ... error with dramatic consequences'
“This is an individual, monumental and unacceptable error with dramatic consequences,” said Minister Van Quickenborne. He said he was taking up his political responsibility by tendering his resignation.
“The independence of a magistrate is the foundation of our rule of law. I have always defended this principle and I will continue to do so," he said. "As Minister of Justice, I can in no way intervene in a magistrate’s decisions. Although this was a decision by an independent magistrate, I nevertheless wish to assume political responsibility for this unacceptable error."
“I sincerely apologise on behalf of the Justice Department to the victims and their families," he added. "I would also like to apologise on behalf of the Justice Department to the Swedish people and our fellow Belgian citizens.”
For his part, Brussels Prosecutor-General Delmulle spoke of an “unfortunate set of circumstances.”
Unserved prison sentence in Tunisia
Van Quickenborne added that a reported 2016 tip-off from a foreign police service about possible radicalisation had already been investigated, “as well as the various statements contained in the police database [...] concerning death threats against a person in a reception center for asylum seekers and the subsequent report.”
Monday's attack took place on the sidelines of a football match between Belgium and Sweden. It left two people dead and one seriously injured, all Swedish nationals. The perpetrator, who later claimed the Islamist nature of his act in a video, was shot dead by police on Tuesday morning.
Several media outlets reported on Friday that the perpetrator had an unserved prison sentence of over 26 years in Tunisia, and this information was confirmed to Belga News Agency. He had been convicted in his home country in 2005 of attempted murder, among other charges, but was already in prison for other crimes. He reportedly escaped from prison in 2011, then began travelling around Europe, ending up in Belgium.
Flouted deportation order
Since last Monday’s attack, many questions have been raised about the presence of the perpetrator in Belgium. Abdesalem Lassoued had been under an obligation to leave the country since 2021, after his asylum application was rejected.
The man was staying in Schaerbeek before carrying out his attack on the three Swedish fans. The suspected killer had “disappeared from the radar” of the immigration services after his asylum application was rejected in October 2020, and he was no longer listed in the national register, even though he was living in the Brussels commune with his wife and daughter.
Information about him had been circulated several times, but he was never registered in the national Threat Analysis Coordination Body's database of radicalised individuals, for lack of sufficient evidence.
