The Minister of Justice of Belgium, Vincent Van Quickenborn, is resigning because of the Tunisian murder of two Swedish citizens in Brussels.
This was reported by the Belgian broadcaster VRT.
At the conference, the minister said that his resignation was due to a mistake made by the prosecutorʼs office. In September 2022, the prosecutorʼs office in Brussels received a request from Tunisia to extradite the man who killed two men. However, they did not do this.
"Despite the fact that this is the work of an independent magistrate, I still want to take political responsibility. I have conveyed this information to the Prime Minister: I have announced that I am resigning as Minister of Justice," Quickenbourn said.
He also apologized on behalf of the Ministry of Justice to the relatives of the victims of the attack and to the Swedish and Belgian peoples.
The man who shot dead two Swedish football fans in Brussels was in Belgium illegally. The Tunisian applied for asylum in 2019, but his application was rejected. He was ordered to leave the area, but later disappeared. The man was known to the police for people smuggling and illegal residence in the country. When he killed two men, he was eliminated by law enforcement officers.