Detective denies pressure from church or politics in the Operation Kelk investigation: « If it had been there, we would have put it on paper »
Anne Beeckman. – © Jimmy Kets
There was no pressure from the ecclesiastical authorities or politics during the investigation in Operation Kelk. That has said retired detective of the Federal Judicial Police Anne Beeckman on Friday in the parliamentary committee of inquiry of the Chamber. « If it had been there, we would have put it on paper, » she said firmly.
Source: Belga
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Since September 2010, Anne Beeckman has been working on Operation Kelk, the investigation into sexual crimes by members of the Catholic Church and a cover -up operation around it within the church. She did that as the right hand of the detective Peter de Waele, who died in 2022. When asked by Axel Weydts, committee member for Vooruit, whether she had felt pressure from the church or politics, she replied determined no.
According to Beeckman, the biggest problem that investigating judge Colette Callewaert was decided in December 2010 that the documents that were seized with the ADRIAENSSENS committee were no longer used. « That meant that four hundred facts, more than half of the file, were suddenly gone, » explains Beeckman. “The more facts you have, the better you can investigate the coherence. That way you could sometimes (from an perpetrator, ed.) Follow fully, via the Halsberghe committee on Devillé to Adriaenssens. ”
Read too. Brussels Council Chamber declares criminal claim in Operation Kelk expired: « Again no recognition for victims »
Irrelevant
Beeckman also denounced the focus on the more than 900 boxes that were seized in June 2010 in, among other things, Archbishop’s Palace in Mechelen and the home and the office of Cardinal Danneels. « There was a lot of completely irrelevant junk in between, such as death cards from a whole parish, » said Beeckman. « Those were mainly documents from the diocese of Mechelen while we were investigating eight dioceses and 23 congregations. I had never heard of some. »
According to Beeckman, her team got the most out of the jug, but the burden of proof was extremely difficult. For example, the researchers fought against the limitation period, had to do with many sexual crimes and to be able to speak of guilty absenteeism, there must be an immediate danger, according to Beeckman.
Correction 18/03/2025: In an earlier version of this article it was wrong that the investigating judge was Wim de Troy in December 2010, instead of Colette Callewaert. That has been adjusted.
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