Six Jailed for Killing of Belgian Minister

Twelve years after Belgium's former deputy prime minister, André Cools, was shot dead in cold blood, a court yesterday found six men guilty of masterminding the country's most sensational political killing.

The two Tunisian gunmen who shot the Socialist leader were jailed in 1998, but the identity of those who ordered the hit had become a riddle that fascinated the public and embarrassed Belgium's glacial and chaotic justice system.

Cools died in a shower of bullets as he left his mistress's flat in Liège one morning in June 1991; his lover was badly wounded, but survived.

Opinions are divided over whether he was killed because he was outraged that some of his colleagues were taking backhanders and was about to blow the whistle on them, or because he was annoyed that the Socialist party was not getting its own cut.

Another theory - forwarded by the prosecution - is that a former minister of the Walloon regional government and a protégé of Mr Cools was behind the killing. He was apparently frustrated that Cools was stalling his career.

The man, Alain van der Biest, committed suicide last year, protesting his innocence.

A Liège court brought down the curtain on the episode yesterday, finding six men guilty of paying the killers and housing and arming them. Two associates of Van der Biest were jailed for 20 years and four men linked to employees of his were sentenced to between five and 20 years.

The investigation uncovered two major scandals, the most sensational of which was the revelation that French aerospace manufacturer, Dassault, and the Italian firm, Agusta, paid more than £2m in bribes to secure equipment orders from the Belgian armed forces.

That in turn prompted the resignation of four Socialist ministers, the suicide of an army general and the downfall of a former deputy prime minister, Willy Claes, as Nato chief.