The son of a former NATO Secretary General has won an appeal against his conviction for fraud and breach of trust on the grounds that the “reasonable timeframe for a ruling was exceeded”.
Last year, a court in Bruges found the defendant and his company guilty of defrauding an 83-year-old woman from Koksijde of over €4 million, Belga News Agency reports. He was handed a ten-month suspended prison sentence and a €4,000 fine, while his company was fined €16,000. The victim was awarded €500,000 in interim damages.
The defendant, a 79-year-old Dutch resident in Bruges, is the son of Joseph Luns, who was NATO Secretary General between 1971 and 1984 and also served as the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs for the Catholic People's Party.
The allegations date back to 2014 when the woman, who reportedly belongs to a conservative branch of the Catholic Church, first met the defendant. She claims to have entrusted him with investing her savings, but the investments did not yield any results.
These investments included a project involving a gold mine in Paraguay, gold in Mali, and cannabis plantations in Colombia. The defendant is also said to have boasted of his close connections with the Prince of Abu Dhabi and top bankers in Turkey.
He also reportedly held power of attorney over the woman's bank account, enabling him to dissipate approximately €4 million.
Appeal court ruling
The defendant vehemently denied defrauding the elderly woman. In an appearance this week at the Ghent Court of Appeal, he referred to the investments as “highly speculative” and said they “didn’t yield the results he expected”.
According to VRT News, he stated: "She came to me herself because I was the son of Joseph Luns. Within two minutes, she asked me to make her investments."
In court, the Dutchman's lawyers reportedly argued negligence on his part, rather than intent to defraud. "He lives in a reality that is not ours and did not knowingly and willingly defraud the woman. The fact that he never repaid the money is not sufficient to speak of fraud and deceptive tactics," they said.
The appeal court ruled in the Dutchman’s favour, agreeing with his lawyers that the “reasonable timeframe for a ruling had been exceeded” to such an extent that the rights of defence had been violated. To this end, the judge declared previous court proceedings to be null and void, and the defendant's sentence was overturned.
