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Peter Naessens, the former director of the Belgian Gaming Commission (BGC), has been handed a 12-month suspended sentence and fined €24,000.
Naessens was found to have conspired with Norbert Boyen, the head of IT at the regulator, to break into BGC president Etienne Marique’s emails in order to copy them onto a USB stick.
The court in Brussels made the discovery while investigating claims Naessens and Boyen had stolen IT equipment, as a repercussion of an ongoing rift between the former president and director.
These original claims were deemed to be unfounded by the court.
Boyen also received a €20,000 fine, half of which is suspended, and an eight-month suspended prison sentence. Only a third of Naessens' fine is suspended.
In his defence, Naessens' attorney Anne Marie De Clerck argued he was attempting to remove “abuses” from the regulator and the “interference of the politically-appointed committee”.
“Etienne Marique had been president for 20 years, while the president could serve at most two terms of six years,” De Clerck argued in court.
Naessens and Boyen opted to offer pleas in mitigation as opposed to denying the charges against them.
However, despite receiving the pleas, the court found the facts of the case “extremely serious”, stating Naessens and Boyen “abused” their roles as senior civil servants, “violating the ethics of their position”.
Additionally, De Clerck argued that her client acted as a matter of “emergency” after he suspected Marique of leaking information in 2019 to journalists with the intention of defaming him.
Separately, De Clerck also argued the criminal claim against Naessens was inadmissible, as the Integrity Centre found it by reading an email between him and his lawyer.
These arguments were rejected by the court.
The dispute between Naessens and Marique was first made public in Summer 2019, when a story published in the Belgian press reported Naessens was under investigation for allegedly selling €6,000 worth of old servers and other IT equipment on the private market.
Through his lawyer, Naessens told VIXIO he totally rejected the accusations.
According to Belgian newspapers, the investigation was triggered in May 2019 at the request of Marique. As is required to be president of the gambling regulator, he is also a judge.
Local papers blamed the dispute between the two on Naessens leading the charge to find a replacement for Marique, whose 19-year tenure was soon coming to an end.
However, in March 2020, Belgian justice minister Koen Geens appointed a crisis manager for the gaming commission, after four officials were removed, including Naessens.
The terminations followed a report for the ombudsman's Integrity Centre alleged serious breaches, including misuse of government resources and accepting gifts from gambling companies.
The court decisions can be appealed.
