NATO Secretary General suspended by a Belgian court?

The appointment of Mark Rutte as NATO Secretary General in October 2024 reflects a drift of the European Union towards a war against Russia. The lawsuit, which seeks to temporarily suspend Mark Rutte’s taking up of office, could therefore have major repercussions on the international balance. Let us look back at this intriguing and little-known case.

On 11 September 2024, the Dutch legal and financial expert Karim Aachboun, represented by the Belgian law firm ADVOCOM, brought proceedings before the Dutch-speaking Court of First Instance in Brussels to request the postponement of Mr Rutte’s appointment as NATO Secretary General. At that date, Mark Rutte had not yet officially taken up his duties at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The plaintiff thus hoped to prevent him from relying on the immunity attached to this new post. Already engaged in two separate proceedings against Mr Rutte and the Dutch State in the Netherlands, Karim Aachboun feared that these actions would be rendered void by the immunity conferred by NATO on its new head.

NATO invokes its immunity

As if to confirm the plaintiff’s concern, NATO, represented by the Belgian law firm Xirius, had indeed invoked its own immunity and informed the Brussels court that it therefore could not be involved in these proceedings. However, against all expectations, it was the Belgian State, also represented by Xirius, that then asked to join the defence. As NATO’s host country, Belgium considered that it had a responsibility to guarantee optimal working conditions for this organisation and therefore to defend it against an action that could hinder its proper functioning. Mr Aachboun obviously strongly objected to Belgium becoming a party to this lawsuit. He considered that the impartiality of the judges would be jeopardised, facing the State that pays them.

In an emotional statement before the Belgian court, Mr Aachboun referred to the right to a fair trial, as described in Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), and according to the principles set out by Charles de Montesquieu, father of the Trias Politica, after whom the court is named. “Legal proceedings are the only path open to citizens seeking justice. We have no other means”, said Mr Aachboun. “If a court bearing Montesquieu’s name does not honour a citizen’s right to a fair trial, if people working for organisations such as NATO can simply invoke immunity for crimes and offences, then what is the value of ‘the rule of law’ or of a ‘constitutional State’?”

The lawyers of the Xirius firm, on behalf of NATO and Mark Rutte, obviously opposed the postponement of the 14th Secretary General’s taking up of office. They also contested the Belgian court’s judicial authority over the North Atlantic Organization. Finally, they considered that the right to a fair trial, invoked by Mr Aachboun, was not relevant, because Human Rights are not considered “absolute” rights, and NATO’s rights would prevail in the present case.

The Belgian courts confirm their jurisdiction to hear the case

In his decision of 24 September 2024, the Brussels judge confirmed his jurisdiction, expressing his disagreement with NATO on this point. However, he considered that Mr Aachboun’s standing to bring proceedings was insufficient and dismissed his claim. Whereupon the plaintiff immediately lodged an appeal. It was crucial for him to do so before Mr Rutte took up his new duties. NATO’s 14th Secretary General nevertheless took up his new post a week later, on 1 October.

Angered by the continuation of the appeal proceedings, the law firm Xirius sent a letter to Mr Aachboun, the content of which is not known. But two days later, on 21 October, the plaintiff made a surprising announcement on social media, warning that he would include documents relating to paedophilia in his appeal file. He was referring to the Demmink scandal^[1], which made headlines between 2007 and 2015, involving the secretary-general of the Ministry of Justice in alleged rapes of young boys, for which he was ultimately not prosecuted. It was following this announcement that Mr Aachboun found himself confronted with a wave of trolls, cyberattacks and other obstacles, in particular to his crowdfunding initiative.

Attempted settlement for 3 million euros

On 4 November, as the appeal hearing scheduled for the end of January 2025 approached, Mr Rutte’s representatives offered Mr Aachboun a financial settlement. In exchange for a payment of three million euros, Karim Aachboun was to drop the two Dutch cases, remain silent forever about “Demmink” and even leave EU territory. Mr Aachboun declined the offer. Ten days later, he announced that he had obtained the right to seize Mark Rutte’s flat in The Hague as security, in case the courts awarded damages to the civil parties in the ongoing lawsuits.

The Demmink case

The disclosure of the terms of the proposed settlement – which confirms that Karim Aachboun had privileged information about Joris Demmink – considerably increased interest in the case in the Netherlands. Joris Demmink, secretary-general of the Dutch Ministry of Justice from 2010 until his retirement in 2012, was one of the most controversial and powerful senior civil servants in the Netherlands. Since the 1990s, Joris Demmink’s name has repeatedly appeared in cases of alleged sexual abuse of underage boys, prostitution of young boys and abuse of power, in the Netherlands and abroad. The names of several other high-ranking officials, including prosecutors, had also leaked in connection with Mr Demmink and his alleged crimes in an earlier case, known as the Rolodex investigation^[4]. Attempts to prosecute Mr Demmink never succeeded. On the contrary, it was those who looked into this case who were themselves prosecuted or threatened with prosecution.

While the Dutch alternative media are now taking an interest in the case, the traditional media, after unsuccessful attempts to portray Mr Aachboun as a charlatan and his accusations as a hoax, have retreated into silence. To date, no Dutch journalist has attended the hearings, and the only Belgian journalist present at the first session never came back…

Court of Appeal judge accuses NATO of interference

A remarkable event occurred at the appeal hearing of 20 January 2025. The Court of Appeal judge suggested that NATO was trying to influence the courts by sending unsolicited letters to himself, to the judge who had delivered the first judgment, and to the presidents of both courts — even though none of the latter is officially involved in the proceedings.

The defence immediately rejected the accusation, claiming that the letter was simply intended to explain, courteously, why NATO, because of its immunity, could not be a party to the lawsuit. The judge was not convinced: according to custom, such correspondence should have been limited to the parties directly concerned by the case. By sending it to his superiors while failing to forward it to the plaintiff, Mr Aachboun, NATO had indeed tried to exert undue pressure, the magistrate concluded.

Mr Aachboun shared this assessment, considering that this approach compromised the impartiality of the courts. Two days after the hearing, he applied to the Court of Cassation in Brussels to have the case withdrawn from the Dutch-speaking Court of Appeal. Out of respect for the judge denouncing the pressure he had suffered, and in order to guarantee a fair judgment, the case could, in his view, no longer be dealt with fairly in Brussels. Mark Rutte, NATO and the judge concerned were invited to submit their observations within one month.

Court of Appeal judge loses his memory

The request to remove the case from the Court of Appeal was rejected on 6 May by the Court of Cassation. The explanation may lie in the fact that the judge, who had initially complained of interference, wrote in his official statement, co-signed by the president of the court, that he no longer remembered what he had previously said about alleged NATO interference. The Court of Cassation thus accepted the explanation of Mr Rutte’s lawyers, who claimed that the letters sent by NATO were mere courtesy letters.

Karim Aachboun nevertheless filed a complaint with the Belgian police on 20 May, even requesting the immediate arrest of Mark Rutte, so that he would not be tempted to put pressure on the police investigation. Citing the case of the Belgian Willy Claes in 1995, forced to give up his post as NATO Secretary General because of an investigation into his involvement in the Agusta-Dassault corruption scandal concerning an arms contract, Mr Aachboun recalled that interference was a serious criminal offence.

All the more so as the current Secretary General Mark Rutte could himself be tainted by a corruption investigation concerning a NATO procurement agency, the NSPA, in connection with contracts for the purchase of drones and ammunition^[5]. This new scandal was revealed on 14 May, when the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office announced that it had arrested several current and former employees of the agency, suspected of corruption and money laundering. However, the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office announced its intention to keep the details of the case confidential “in the interest of the investigation”.

Moreover, in the case between them and Mr Aachboun, Mr Rutte’s lawyers warned Belgium that the arrest of the NATO Secretary General would cause “a diplomatic crisis of unprecedented magnitude”.

No ruling, but a rumour

On 12 May, the date on which the Court of Appeal was to deliver its ruling, the courtroom door remained closed, although the hearing had not been officially cancelled. All attempts to obtain an explanation, a new hearing date or a record of judgment were in vain. Did the judge deliver a ruling or not? That is what the plaintiff himself is trying to clarify. Indeed, Karim Aachboun was particularly surprised when, on 4 June, the Dutch legal commentator Chris Klomp tweeted that he had lost his appeal and that the Court of Appeal had overruled the Court of First Instance by declaring the Belgian courts incompetent to rule on the dispute between Karim Aachboun, Mark Rutte and NATO. On 9 June, Mr Aachboun had still not received any official information that could confirm this rumour.

The lawsuits brought in the Netherlands

In the lawsuits brought in the Netherlands, Karim Aachboun is suing Mark Rutte and the Dutch State in connection with two scandals: the illegal supply of military equipment to Israel, and wrongdoing concerning family allowances and childcare benefits.

• Defending a victim in Gaza - illegal supply of military spare parts to Israel

In a first lawsuit, Karim Aachboun represents the interests of the family of a 37-year-old Dutch woman who died in an Israeli attack in Gaza. Mr Aachboun claims that because of illegal deliveries of F‑35 spare parts to Israel, the Dutch State and Mark Rutte, as former Prime Minister, are jointly responsible for the woman’s death. The judge at first instance dismissed the case in January 2025, without holding a hearing. Mr Aachboun has appealed against this dismissal; the date of the appeal hearing has not yet been set.

• The childcare benefits scandal

In the second case, Mr Aachboun represents 40 victims (a number that continues to grow) of the Toeslagenaffaire,, the Dutch childcare benefits scandal, which took place between 2003 and 2019. More than 20,000 families had been wrongly accused of benefit fraud by the tax administration. Administrative errors, cruel policies, wrongdoing: many families, ordered to repay sums received over several years, went bankrupt and suffered tragic family situations, ultimately leading to the resignation of Mr Rutte’s government over the scandal^[6]. Children had even been wrongly taken from their parents, triggering a chain of family tragedies. Even today, not all children are said to have been reunited with their families, and some children are even said to have been “lost” by the administration. The last hearing in these proceedings took place on 14 April at the court in The Hague. It concerned procedural irregularities reported by Mr Aachboun’s lawyer, who is concerned that “forces” might try to derail the trial.

“Arrest Rutte”

Asking Mark Rutte, who has become very unpopular, to answer for his actions and his destructive legacy could be a way of uniting the citizens of the Netherlands. That, at any rate, is the goal relentlessly pursued by Karim Aachboun. Faced with the silence of the media, he has even launched a campaign on huge illuminated billboards overlooking the motorways of the Randstad, inviting citizens to support his legal actions and to “arrest Rutte”!

Djamila le Pair for BAM!

French translation & adaptation: KAro. Translated here from the French.

Photo montage by BAM!

[1] Investigation into top civil servant boy rapes claim ends, no charges - DutchNews.nl

[2] Hoe Den Haag de pedo’s vertroetelde – De Groene Amsterdammer

[3] 6. Inflatie | CBS

[4] Justice ministers were aware of Demmink abuse claims, court told - DutchNews.nl

[5] Le parquet belge enquête sur le personnel d’une agence d’approvisionnement de l’OTAN - Euractiv FR

[6] Dutch government resigns over child benefits scandal | Netherlands | The Guardian