The Mayor of Neufchâteau (Luxembourg province, Wallonia) has been partly guilty of electoral fraud charges that accused the official of forgery, the use of forged documents, and breach of trust “within the framework of an association of criminals.”
The verdict was delivered by the correctional court of Hainaut (in Mons) on Monday; Dimitri Fourny was found partly guilty of being responsible for attempting to manipulate the results of a local election in October 2018, in which he was elected as mayor.
Found guilty, Fourney received a 12-month suspended sentence and a fine of €16,000. He will also be barred from participating in any election for 10 years.
Fourny still disputes the charges against him. According to his lawyers, the fraud was committed by a CPAS adviser, Francine Bossicart, who had ambitions of becoming a councillor. He alleges that she committed the fraud alone, while he was away from the town.
At the trial, Bossicart’s lawyer spoke on behalf of his client, who was absent due to medical reasons. “She slipped up, she is aware of it and regrets the consequences for all the other people mentioned in the case. However, she did not act alone. Others were aware of these actions,” the lawyer said.
Bosicart’s defence said it would have been impossible for her to know the national register numbers of some of the other suspects in the fraud. The lawyer complained that his client was now treated as “a plague victim” within the city.
Securing the slightest of margins
The investigation, first started by the prosecutor’s office of the province of Luxembourg, revealed several litigious powers of attorney within a retirement home. These proxies were used to allocate additional votes to the “Agir ensemble” list of Fourny’s reelection campaign. This was a significant fraud, seeing as the mayor was elected with a majority of just 16 votes.
After the fraud was discovered, a new ballot was organised in the city eight months later. This time, “Agir ensemble” lost its majority and was returned to the opposition. Fourny, who previously served as the head of Centre Démocrate Humaniste party (now Les Engagés) in the Walloon parliament, stepped away from politics in 2021 and has always denied any wrongdoing.
Related News
- Trial on false proxy voters during 2018 elections in Neufchâteau begins
- Ex-mayor of Neufchâteau must face trial for possible election fraud, court rules
The Luxembourg public prosecutor’s office originally asked the Court of Cassation to dismiss the case, given that several of the defendants and proxies were linked by family ties. The case was later brought back to court thanks to actions of the local commune.
