Belgian Court Rules Against Government in Muslim Leader’s Forced Resignation Case

The case dates back to December 2020. At the time, Vincent Van Quickenborne had called for the renewal of all the bodies of the EMB, after having issued a negative opinion concerning the resumption of the activities of the Great Mosque of Brussels. It would have been infiltrated by three agents of the Moroccan intelligence service, recalls the newspaper Le Soir.

The State Security Service even stressed that it took the establishment of a system of imams attached to the service of the Great Mosque in 2019, for it to cease to be "a structural vector of the dissemination of religious extremism". Salah Echallaoui then resigned "without acknowledging these unfounded accusations" and sued the State Security Service and the Minister of Justice in court in May 2021.

By ruling in its judgment of September 1 in favor of Salah Echallaoui, the Court of First Instance of Brussels stresses that the information collected by the State Security "are assimilable to an anonymous intelligence devoid, as such, of probative value. Such intelligence must therefore be used with particular caution."

Regarding the actions and statements made by the Minister of Justice that led to Echallaoui’s resignation, the court sees "an unfounded and disproportionate interference in his freedoms of worship and association", which constitutes. "The only information provided by the State Security Service, without any other element to verify their veracity, is not sufficient to establish the reality of the espionage and interference acts attributed to Echallaoui," the court said.

For Marc Uyttendaele, Salah Echallaoui’s lawyer, the judgment of the Court of First Instance restores his client’s honor. "It’s a real slap in the face to the Minister of Justice. Mr. Echallaoui was presented as someone who was playing the game of foreign action, who now sees his honor restored today. When I first received him, he was a man who was damaged, whose action had been tarnished by ministerial statements and who had to sacrifice himself personally in the battles that animated him." Marc Uyttendaele has already announced that he intends to file a complaint with the Standing Committee R for his client.

For its part, the cabinet of the Minister of Justice announces that it will appeal the judgment. "In the interest of the Muslim community in our country, we will continue to speak this clear language and to tackle the machinations and falsifications," it was declared at the cabinet.