The city’s chief prosecutor has caused outrage after telling a public audience that a member of the Brussels parliament rang him and asked that a man in prison be released.
Julien Moinil spoke last Monday at Wolubilis in Woluwe-Saint-Lambert, at an evening on security organised by newspaper Le Soir before about 500 people.
Asked by the paper’s investigations editor, Louis Colart, whether there was a problem of integrity in Brussels politics, he offered what he called an anecdote.
His phone rang. A deputy was on the line. “Hello. Listen, I know someone who is in prison. Could you have him released?”
The prisoner’s offence has not been disclosed.
The hall laughed. Moinil said he looked up who the detainee was and then “kindly explained to the gentleman who Anne-Marie Lizin was,” for those who knew the reference.
Lizin, a former Socialist mayor of Huy and ex-president of the Senate, was known for writing to magistrates on behalf of constituents. Neither the deputy nor the prisoner has been named.
The call was not presented as a curiosity on its own.
🇧🇪 Un député Bruxellois est accusé d'avoir demandé au procureur du roi d'intervenir pour faire libérer un détenu.
Si les faits sont confirmés, c'est gravissime, indigne d’un représentant démocratique et digne d'une république bananière, le député doit démissionner.
La… https://t.co/qqwCPiuEkO pic.twitter.com/Fz00r6rlYL
— Simao.rda 🦅🦁 (@Simao_rda) September 28, 2026
Moinil said there were committed people in the regional parliament and that one should not generalise, but that the level of competence in the house sometimes “raises questions,” and that with it came “a level of integrity that leaves one speechless.”
Zakia Khattabi, leader of the French speaking Green group Ecolo, said a prosecutor who asserts that a regional deputy called him to intervene in a case is not offering a throwaway line. It is a serious accusation, she said, and it cannot be left hanging over every member of the house.
If Moinil will not name the caller, she asked him at least to clear those who are not involved, “starting with my group: If no Ecolo deputy is concerned, let him say so clearly.”
Mathias Vanden Borre, MEP for the centre-right said such a phone call was an “egregious violation of the separation of powers and strong indication of other forms of corruption, fraud, conflicts of interest,…”
Simão Rda of the Liberal MR party said “If the facts are confirmed, it is extremely serious, unworthy of a democratic representative and befitting a banana republic; the deputy must resign. The separation of powers must be absolutely respected, and this deputy should be condemned.”
He called for a ethics committee on the matter.
Legally, this intervention directly breaches Article 151 of the Belgian Constitution, which guarantees the absolute separation of powers and protects magistrates from political interference.
Under the criminal code, using an elected position to pressure a magistrate constitutes trading in influence, an offense that escalates to obstruction of justice if any element of intimidation or coercion is involved.
Short of a criminal trial, the MP faces immediate investigation by parliament’s ethics commission and severe political sanctions for undermining the rule of law.
Moinil has spent the past year talking in public about shootings, overcrowded prisons and the gaps between the nineteen police zones and federal justice in the capital of the EU.
Last November eight people were arrested, then released, in an inquiry into an alleged plot against him.
Brussels is experiencing a relentless surge in severe violence, marked by a high number of shootings, prompting the public prosecutor to raise the alarm. https://t.co/mLUAhELKMm
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) August 13, 2025
