A 71-year-old man wanted since 2004 by Belgium for his participation in the resounding assassination of the former Belgian minister André Cools has been arrested in the south of Italy, the Belgian Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday evening.
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A ministry spokesperson contacted by AFP confirmed press reports of the Italian police arrest of Cosimo Solazzo, in Veglie (southern Lecce province). He was arrested "under a European arrest warrant issued by Belgian justice" , said this spokesperson, Arnaud Gaspart, without further details. The assassination of André Cools, perpetrated in 1991 in Liège (east) and which resulted in three assize trials in Belgium, has never really been elucidated. It is one of the biggest politico-criminal cases in the history of the kingdom.
The investigation notably led to the Agusta and Dassault files, two political-financial scandals relating to arms contracts tainted by the payment of bribes to the Flemish Socialist Party. This had led to multiple resignations of socialist figures in the 1990s. Cosimo Solazzo is one of the many protagonists in the André Cools affair, himself a former heavyweight of the socialist family on the Walloon side, in the French-speaking part of the country. He was part of a group of men close to the private secretary of another former PS minister, Alain Van der Biest, who was accused of being the sponsor and who committed suicide in 2002.
Cosimo Solazzo had been sentenced by default to 20 years in prison during the first assize trial in January 2004 in Liège for his participation in the assassination. This former accused was then on the run since the previous summer, and he said he was innocent. For its part, the prosecution accused him of having rented an apartment used to house the killers, two Tunisians also sentenced to 20 years in prison in their country in 1998 No details were given Wednesday evening on the deadline within which septuagenarian could be returned to Belgium.