André Harpes, lawyer and son of Aloyse Harpes, delivered his defence arguments on Thursday. From the outset, he echoed earlier remarks by Maître Georges Pierret regarding the way the 2013–2014 Bommeleeër trial was conducted, a trial in which their clients, along with four others, were accused of having made false statements.
“Before you stands an 85-year-old man, here to give his answers, and this is how the public prosecutor treats him”, Harpes said.
He accused the prosecution of acting with calculation: “He calls people in, says ‘Hurrah, I’ve got them under oath, now I can lay into them them’. Every right to remain silent was ignored. I have never witnessed anything like what happened during that hearing”, the lawyer stated.
Harpes also claimed that during the 177 days of the 2013–2014 Bommeleeër trial, the prosecution had made no real progress. He accused the prosecution of being clueless and reluctant to act.
He further claimed the prosecution of having created an emergency exit at the expense of the current defendants, implying they had tried to shift blame. But the results of further investigations, he claimed, had left everyone unhappy. Now, highly decorated officers are being accused of having ties to the Bommeleeër affair, he continued. “Yet Geiben remains untouched”, Harpes added.
The prosecution has requested a sentence of two years in prison for 97-year-old Aloyse Harpes, former commander of the gendarmerie.
Harpes’ defense claimed that due to the amount of time that has passed since the Bommeleeër affair and the circumstances surrounding its events, it is unreasonable to expect his client – and father – to recall every detail. “The Bommeleeër affair wasn’t the first thing on the minds of those officers when they arrived at the office each morning”, he concluded.
The lawyer further criticised the public prosecutor for suggesting that Aloyse Harpes was solely responsible: “One hundred people, and there was just one. A one-man show”, his son said. Regarding the founder of the gendarmerie’s Mobile Brigade, Ben Geiben, Aloyse Harpes had said he was not aware of him, yet now he is being told he was. “This is where the house of cards collapses. The claim is that Harpes is the only gendarme in the entire world”, according to his lawyer.
He asserted that investigators and the public prosecutor had tried to manufacture a story because they have nothing: “But what does that have to do with the Bommeleeër case? Or with the Scheer/Wilmes trial? Nothing.”
Harpes contended that to determine the intent of the accused, one would first need to know what the prosecution considers to be the truth.
Someone who has nothing to hide doesn’t need a lawyer, former security officer Guillaume Büchler claimed on the first day of his trial.
The public prosecutor called for a sentence of 18 months without parole on charges of false statement and perjury. “Eighteen months without parole, is this the reward for 18 years of impeccable service to the police and justice system?”, Büchler questioned.
He reminded the judge that the way in which the 76-year-old will spend his final years lies in the judge’s hands.
Büchler also rhetorically asked whether his testimony had in any way influenced the Bommeleeër trial of 2013–2014, answering with a firm no. He insisted that he had testified neither for nor against the accused.
He further told the court that, contrary to public perception, he had never encountered Ben Geiben in Brussels, a meeting Geiben had cast doubt on in his own statements.
Concluding his defence, Büchler appealed to the judge to lift the burden that he said hung over him like the sword of Damocles, and asked for an acquittal. He noted that he was unable to go into further detail as he did not have access to his case file.
