In Belgium, the commotion is growing about a house party organized by the Minister of Justice, during which people repeatedly urinated against a police car. According to the VRT, video images suggest that Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne, who has been protected since a foiled kidnapping attempt, was aware of the incident.
The public prosecutor’s office in Belgium is still investigating what exactly happened. Van Quickenborne maintains his earlier statement that he was not aware that visitors to his party had urinated on a parked police car.
“The interpretation of the images is suggestive and does not prove that I was aware of what happened in the hours before,” he responds to the message from the Flemish broadcaster.
But according to the VRT, images captured by security cameras give a different impression. In the video, which the VRT writes about but which has not been published, the minister appears around 04.00 am. In the hours before, several guests have already peed against the police car across the street.
‘Plasimitation’
When Van Quickenborne comes into the picture, he is on the doorstep in a drunken state, according to the broadcaster. He leans back and pretends to pee. Then the minister and a guest look at Van Quickenborne’s phone “and there is great hilarity”.
Then the jubilee – the party on August 14 was in honor of his fiftieth birthday – crosses the street. “Just like his guests that night” Van Quickenborne opens the door of the empty police car. The door was probably not locked, because the battery was empty. There is no description of what the host did after opening the door.
‘This is interpretation’
“The minister confirms that he opened the door of the police car to lock it properly,” a spokesman for Van Quickenborne told VRT. The minister denies again that he would have known about urinating against the car.
At the end of August, the minister called the incident “disgraceful” in an initial response. “The minister has a good relationship with the police, who also offer him protection, and certainly has no understanding for this kind of wantonness,” said Van Quickenborne’s spokesperson to newspaper De Morgen.
Getting the bottom stone up
Police unions have not seen the video footage, but are angry about the incident. They want the camera images to be released in order to get to the bottom of the matter. “Public urination is a marginal phenomenon,” trade union ACV is quoted as saying, “but if it turns out that the minister has done more and knew more, then we are in a different order of magnitude.”
The public prosecutor’s office is trying to identify the people who are urinating in public. They will be questioned and possibly prosecuted.
