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The Deputy Prime Minister’s Family
12/11/2009 :: Last November, the Belgian judiciary confiscated all the copies of the Brussels satirical weekly magazine Père Ubu. The weekly had reported – correctly – that 17-year old Sarah Guenned, the daughter of 51-year old Laurette Onkelinx, Belgium’s Minister of Health, former Minister of Justice, and one of the leaders of the Walloon Parti Socialiste (PS), had been arrested in the company of a notorious drug dealer. Minister Onkelinx, who is also Belgium’s Deputy Prime Minister, personally went to the police station to arrange for her daughter, who is a drug addict, to be released and return home with her.
In the 1980s, a younger sister of the minister spent some time in jail as a drug trafficker. Minister Onkelinx’ former husband, Abbès Guenned, a Belgian of Moroccan origin and the father of her daughter, is also a drug dealer. In 1996, Morocco issued an international arrest warrant against Guenned, who at the time was still married to Onkelinx, then Prime Minister of the Walloon regional government. In 1997, Guenned was arrested at Brussels airport, but the Belgian authorities had to let him go because, though not a diplomat, he had a Belgian diplomatic passport. The minister subsequently divorced him, but they remained close. She got him a job at the Justice Ministry and he was her best man when in 1999 she married her second husband, Marc Uyttendaele, a Belgian government’s lawyer.
Intimidation
In 1998, Guenned was again arrested for drug trafficking. This time at Izmir Airport in Turkey. Morocco asked for his extradition, but the Belgian Minister of Justice intervened with his Turkish colleague and had Guenned released and put on a plane to Brussels, where he was allowed to go free.
The family affairs of Madame Onkelinx are her private business, but the political interference on behalf of criminal members of her family is not. Neither is the intimidation of the Belgian press to ensure that no paper dare to write about the issue. Apart from Père Ubu the events have not been covered anywhere. The confiscation of the magazine ensures that this remains so.
As Minister of Health Mrs. Onkelinx wants to introduce legislation to guarantee the quality of illegal drugs. Given her family background, this is not at all surprising. The Vlaams Belang demands that combating drug trafficking, be the government’s top priority rather than catering to the needs of the Deputy Prime Minister’s family.
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