Georges Gilkinet, the Belgian MP from the Green Party (Ecolo) and the “star” of the so-called Kazakhgate commission, is a man of unpalatable convictions. In late 2009, for instance, he drafted a law that would have forced the banks to publish each year the names of their clients. He didn’t care that such a law,… Continue reading
Open source investigations
The former CEO of AWDC, Freddy Hanard was heard by the Parliamentary Inquiry Commission on 23 March 2017. As revealed by OSI, he chose to mock and defy the Belgian MPs. And in some ways he was wright. Freddy Hanard was the CEO of the AWDC from May 2006 to December 2010. He was running… Continue reading
Eubelius, the largest law firm in Belgium, presents itself as the country’s lawmaker. Well, the advert is correct. Raf Verstraeten was a senior partner in Eubelius when he wrote and lobbied for the settlement law. He was still a Eubelius lawyer when he used the law for the benefit of his clients in the diamond… Continue reading
Belgian politician Dirk Van der Maelen (SP.A) is behind an attack on OSI. Over the last few weeks, OSI has been revealing the gross conflict of interest of the president of the Parliamentary Inquiry Commission and his effort to keep the real authors of the settlement law – the diamond lobby – safe. Two days… Continue reading
When on 22 March this year the Kazakhgate commission in the Belgian Parliament questioned the former CEO of the Antwerp World Diamond Centre (AWDC), Freddy Hanard, it was very shy. No powerful questions were asked. It was as if the members of the commission were afraid to reveal too much of the truth, namely that… Continue reading
Despite early efforts, the Parliamentary Inquiry Commission can no longer ignore the obvious: According to its president, Dirk Van der Maelen, the Commission concluded that the settlement law was drafted by the diamond lobby for the benefit of the diamond dealers involved in fraud investigations. However this conclusion was not based on the testimonies of… Continue reading
Members of the Parliamentary Inquiry Commission were shocked to find out on 19 April 2017 that the academic expert who supported the settlement bill in the Senate was on the diamond lobby’s payroll. OSI can now reveal that while pushing for the enlargement of the criminal settlement, Raf Verstraeten (photo) was not only the lawyer of… Continue reading
It has taken Belgian Parliamentary Inquiry Commission four months to discover the obvious: the enlargement of the criminal settlement law was drafted by the Antwerp diamond lobby in 2009. On 10 April 2017, Dirk Van der Maelen, the president of the commission, bragged in an interview: “We have now discovered in the inquiry that the Verherstraeten… Continue reading
OSI offered ample evidence that the law voted on 14 April 2011 in the Belgian Parliament amending the Code of Criminal procedure by allowing prosecuted individuals and companies to enter into transactions with the Public Prosecutor to terminate the public prosecution of offences – the so-called “extended criminal transaction” – was in fact drafted and… Continue reading
„I made a commitment to the Zimbabwean minister of Mines to help lift the European Union sanctions on Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation and I worked extremely hard to keep these promises”. As strange as it may seem, it was not a government official or a politician who made that statement. It was Antwerp World Diamond… Continue reading
