2023-07-22 12:43:00
Summer is also an opportunity to discover the personalities behind these faces that make the headlines at the hottest time of the year. We have chosen Eric Van Duyse for this extraordinary interview. Spokesperson for the federal prosecutor’s office, the former journalist embodies the biggest Belgian legal cases of the last five years. Terrorism, footgate, qatargate, SkyECC, Jurgen Conings affair…. the most delicate communications were carried out by Eric Van Duyse.
Encounter.
YOU SAY YOU ADMIRE THE JOURNALIST, WHY DID YOU LEAVE HIM TO JOIN JUSTICE?
“I had started by studying law when I was young before embarking on journalism by participating in the launch of a magazine. In 1994, I did my first reports in Lebanon for La Libre. I then moved on to RTL and stayed there for many years, covering quite a few conflicts abroad before joining RTBF before joining the federal prosecutor’s office six years ago as a spokesperson. This function did not exist before my arrival”.
HOW DO YOU INTEGRATE WITH THE MAGISTRATES?
“At the beginning, I was on a wire, suspended in the void. It happened little by little. It was necessary to make the magistrates understand that the communication service is not the press but that the need to know the judicial file is essential in order not to know any oddities. If we only have scraps, we will make mistakes, that’s for sure”.
EVERY WORD YOU SAY IS CAREFULLY WEIGHTED…
Each answer is a bit like a parachute jump. You have to be in agreement with the magistrate, the judge and the federal prosecutor. The implications of disclosure in cases of the magnitude of those handled by the federal prosecutor’s office are very serious. Behind the words, behind what the public wants to know, human lives are at stake. The force of justice is terrible, it can crush lives. I will never give names for example”.
THE FAMOUS “NO COMMENT”, IS IT NOT A BAD COMMUNICATION STRATEGY?
“From a poacher, I became a game warden but my love of the press remains intact. It is fundamental to have a press that works well in a democracy. We are lucky in Belgium to have a press that is highly responsible, with whom we can dialogue. I never answer ‘no comment’, I always explain the reasons why it is not possible to communicate such or such information”.
YOU ARE REQUESTED BY THE MEDIA AROUND THE WORLD…
“Many of the files managed by the federal prosecutor’s office have indeed an international reason but that of Qatargate has exceeded all the others. During the first days of the investigation on the European Parliament, I received up to 250 requests for interviews per day! At 2 a.m., you have a television from India calling you and telling you that you are going to be facing 300 million viewers”.
Brussels – Woluwe-Saint-Lambert: Eric. Van Duyse, Director of Communication at the Federal Prosecutor’s Office. In Brussels, July 6, 2023 ©JC Guillaume
QATARGATE, FOOTGATE, SKYECC,.. WHAT IS THE FOLDER THAT MARKED YOU THE MOST?
Behind our files, there are people who are suffering and we are there, as a prosecution, to represent society. The most fascinating file was that of Jurgen Conings. The elements followed one another and the attempts to destabilize public opinion were numerous. It was intense as an investigation, the searches took place day and night. We were non-stop on the bridge. We are lucky in Belgium to have a federal crisis center where everyone knows each other. Members of Ocam, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office, State Security, the Prime Minister’s Office,…. our work force also lies in trust between all”.
HAVE YOU EVER BEEN THREATENED?
“’Life is not regarding waiting for the storm to pass, it’s regarding learning to dance in the rain’. I really like this quote from Seneca. I already found myself as a journalist at the time with a gun to my head. I am not quickly worried and I face the difficulties with serenity. Since I have been at the Federal Prosecutor’s Office, it has happened two or three times that I find myself under police protection because there were indications that some wanted to cut off the head of the Federal Prosecutor’s Office, but the head that we saw on the screen was mine. My children reacted quite well and find it rather playful. It’s better that way. On the other hand, I have a lot of admiration for my fellow magistrates who find themselves targeted by concrete threats, moved from one safehouse to another. Their courage in dealing with such sensitive issues is a real bulwark once morest the corruption that we see appearing in many States”.
WHERE ARE WE HEADING IN TERMS OF CORRUPTION?
“The significant drug trafficking that we are facing represents a major risk for public health and a significant criminal risk. In the context of cocaine trafficking, there is so much money at stake that there is, alas, no limit. They can spend and buy whatever they want. For them, 25,000 euros or two million, it’s the same, there is no difference. We do everything to avoid corruption and to prevent violence from taking hold in our country. The attention given to the fight once morest corruption is great. But crime can also take root in a much more discreet way by passing through the real economy, via businesses, such as pizzerias for example, intended solely to launder money from international drug trafficking.
Brussels – Woluwe-Saint-Lambert: Eric. Van Duyse, Director of Communication at the Federal Prosecutor’s Office. In Brussels, July 6, 2023 ©JC Guillaume
YOU ARE OFTEN CRITICIZED BY LAWYERS. IT IS OFTEN SAID THAT THE FILES OF THE FEDERAL PROSECUTOR’S PROSECUTOR BIRTH A MOUSE…
“The role of a lawyer is also to raise his arms to heaven and be indignant. It’s his job and it’s good. But it should be remembered that as long as a file has not arrived before a trial court, it is important to make a distinction between the statements of one and the other sometimes only aim to harm. In the Qatargate file, for example, a file for violation of professional secrecy was opened. This is not aimed at the press but at people who, within the judicial or legal chain, have obligations to respect. We at the prosecution are at a great disadvantage compared to lawyers because they make a lot of statements, sometimes humanly hurtful, but we don’t reply. There is somewhere an imbalance in the expression, some very free, sometimes even insulting, whereas at our level, we will remain sober and neutral because it is not up to us to play another role. We let the lower courts decide”.
WE FEEL IN SOME LAWYERS A HATE VIS-À-VIS THE FEDERAL PROSECUTOR. THE COMMENTS HAVE NEVER BEEN SO VIOLENT.
“It’s a game where everyone plays their role. I think that the complexity of the cases handled by the federal prosecutor’s office and the media intensity they generate mean that this violence is more extensive. It is always the same lawyers who use the same methods of attack and discredit. It’s not always easy to live with for the members of the prosecution whose mission is simply to defend society”.
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF BELGIAN JUSTICE?
“There are those who sigh and there are those who blow on the sail. I am not saying that those who sigh are wrong, but we must be able to recognize that there is a real technological evolution within the justice system. And these steps are taken with the objective of making serious improvements to the system”
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