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Belgian authorities have launched a criminal investigation into a far-right Flemish politician who has been used as a spy agent for China for years.
An investigation by the Financial Times, Der Spiegel and Le Monde published in December found that Frank Kleierman, a former member of the far-right Vlamers Beran party, had been working on behalf of Chinese spies for more than three years. He was carrying out his mission.
Authorities were aware of the suspicions but were unable to prosecute Kleierman and the other suspects because espionage and foreign interference are not considered criminal offenses in Belgium.
However, Belgian Justice Minister Poul van Tigchelt said on Wednesday that the case had been handed over to federal prosecutors by the federal police’s anti-corruption unit.
“The federal prosecutor’s office has effectively opened an investigation,” federal prosecutors spokesman Eric Van Duys confirmed, without providing further details.
Belgian criminal law does not consider espionage or foreign interference to be crimes dating back to 1867, so authorities would prosecute similar cases on corruption charges if the evidence supports them, according to an official familiar with the matter. It is said that there are many things to do.
Van Tigchelt said a report on the Kleierman case was prepared by the police’s Central Bureau for the Suppression of Corruption in December and then sent to the prosecutor’s office.
Belgian authorities were under intense pressure to address allegations of foreign interference after they became aware in 2018 that Kleierman and other politicians may have ties to China but were unable to prosecute them at the time. It’s here.
According to text messages obtained by the FT, Daniel Wu, an official with China’s Ministry of State Security spy agency, told Kreielmann that he had been accused of a number of issues in Europe, from China’s crackdown on democracy in Hong Kong to the persecution of Uyghurs in Xinjiang. It was revealed that he had given instructions to influence the discussion.
“China employs a range of overt and covert influence methods that fall into the gray area between lobbying, interference, political influence and espionage, economic blackmail and disinformation, and there are often no clear boundaries,” Van Tigchelt told the Parliamentary Judge. Committee.
He added that politicians are “easy targets for China’s influence and interference apparatus.”
A member of Belgium’s far-right Flemish Nationalist Movement since 1977, Kleiermann served as a member of the Federal Senate from 1999 to 2007 and then as a member of the Flemish Parliament until 2014. He was the representative of the Vlaams Beran party in his hometown of Mechelen. He was stripped of his party affiliation following the revelations.
Kleierman did not respond to requests for comment on the Belgian investigation, nor did he respond to questions about the allegations. Chinese authorities deny knowledge of the incident.
Belgium’s federal parliament is scheduled to vote on a bill to reform the criminal law in the coming weeks, and it is expected to pass. Van Tigchelt said he called for provisions on espionage and foreign interference to take effect “immediately.”