Brussels Prosecutor Alleges MP Sought Detainee Release

The King’s Prosecutor of Brussels, Julien Moinil, has publicly accused an unidentified Brussels MP of telephoning him to request the release of a detainee — a claim that has cast suspicion over the entire regional parliament and triggered demands for clarification.

Speaking at a security conference organized by the newspaper Le Soir at Wolubilis in Woluwe-Saint-Lambert on 21 September, before an audience of about 500 people, Moinil recounted the episode when asked about potential integrity problems in Brussels politics. The remarks were reported by RTBF on Sunday.

”Could you have them released?”

According to Moinil’s account, the MP said: “My phone rings and I have an MP on the line. He says hello. Listen, I know someone who is in prison. Could you have them released?”

Moinil said he looked into who the person was and declined the request, invoking the memory of the late Anne-Marie Lizin — a former mayor of Huy and president of the Belgian Senate notorious for lobbying magistrates on behalf of constituents.

“I was curious, so I quickly went to see who it was. I politely explained to the gentleman who Anne-Marie Lizin was, for those who have the reference,” Moinil said. He did not name the MP.

The prosecutor went further, describing what he called “a level of competence and integrity of the Brussels Parliament that leaves one stunned.” Because no name was given, the accusation has placed the entire Brussels regional parliament under a cloud.

Ecolo Demands Clarification

On Sunday, Zakia Khattabi, the Ecolo group leader in the Brussels Parliament, publicly reacted, calling the statement “a grave accusation.”

“Mr. Moinil’s commitment to greater transparency and to a fully independent judiciary is to be welcomed,” Khattabi said, as reported by Bruxelles Today. “But transparency also has its demands. When a King’s Prosecutor says an MP called him to intervene in cases, that is not a throwaway line. It is a grave accusation.”

“One cannot launch such an accusation in the public space and then let suspicion weigh indiscriminately on all Brussels MPs,” she added. Khattabi urged the prosecutor to explicitly clear those who are not concerned, starting with her own group. “If no Ecolo MP is concerned, let him say so clearly,” she said. “Transparency cannot consist of an anecdote that casts suspicion on everyone in order to protect the identity of a few.”

The episode has also drawn a striking admission from another lawmaker. As RTBF’s Chroniques column reported, MR MP Laurent Willockx said he would not pretend to be discovering that the practice exists. “I sit in the Brussels Parliament. I don’t intend to pretend to discover that this culture exists. It exists,” he said, calling for sanctions against such conduct.

A Reference to a Fallen Icon

Moinil’s invocation of Anne-Marie Lizin (1949–2015) carries heavy symbolism in Belgian political life. A socialist mayor of Huy and the first woman elected president of the Senate, Lizin was known for writing numerous letters to magistrates on behalf of constituents, and for intervening in judicial dossiers.

As La Libre reported in 2005, she wrote on city of Huy letterhead — signed as both mayor and Senate president — to the president of the Liège Court of Appeal in support of a constituent’s case, a move jurists described as inappropriate. She was later suspended from the PS and removed from her Senate functions. Because of this history, her name came to stand for inappropriate political pressure on the judiciary, as RTBF noted in its obituary.

A Prosecutor Known for Conflict

The controversy is inseparable from Moinil’s own profile. As Brussels’ top prosecutor, he has repeatedly clashed with the political class over the under-resourcing of justice, prison overcrowding, narco-trafficking and shootings in the capital. In February, he warned that corruption was spreading within Belgian institutions.

In the same analysis, RTBF argued that the prosecutor has been somewhat trapped by his own anecdote — he said too little to prove a generalized problem, yet too much to dismiss it as an isolated act. The piece suggested that a parliamentary hearing of the prosecutor could be a way to “lance the abscess.”

What’s Next

The identity of the MP remains unknown, and it is unclear whether an official investigation, parliamentary hearing or disciplinary process will follow. The affair has reopened a broader debate about judicial independence and political interference in Belgium — and about the integrity of the Brussels regional Parliament.

For now, the burden sits with Moinil. His refusal to name the lawmaker has protected one suspect while leaving dozens of uninvolved MPs to defend themselves, a paradox that Ecolo’s Khattabi was quick to seize upon — and one that the coming weeks may force him to resolve.