Agusta scandal

Numerous senior figures in both Walloon and Flemish socialist parties were implicated, including the incumbent Secretary General of NATO Willy Claes who was forced to resign.

An official investigation into the deal was started in January 1993, by judge Véronique Ancia, when a search warrant was issued for Agusta and its lobbyist Georges Cywie.

Frank Vandenbroucke, Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Federal Government for the Flemish Socialistische Partij (SP), resigned from his post in March 1994.

Claes, Coëme, Delanghe, Hermanus, Mangé, Puelinckx, Spitaels and Wallyn were also barred from running for political office, or working in the civil service, for five years.

The trial of the five others who applied to the ECHR, Dassault, Hermanus, Delanghe, Puelinckx and Wallyn, at the Court of Cassation, was found to have contravened the European Convention on Human Rights, but their verdicts would stand nonetheless.