Ex-minister Luc Martens (78) leaves prison: after a month behind bars back to his wife, but also to the psychiatrist (inland)
Former minister Luc Martens (78) was allowed to leave the prison of Bruges on Tuesday evening. The former mayor Van Roeselare was behind bars for scams for more than a month. He is free again under strict conditions and must now be guided psychiatric.
Just after 8 pm Tuesday evening, a white car with a female driver drove the parking of the prison in Bruges. Not much later, and fairly discreet, former minister Luc Martens stepped outside with a box with a box with personal belongings in his hands, which he was allowed to keep in his cell last month.
Martens was still left behind a hood and then the car drove away. Back home to Roeselare, after his wife Chantal van Audenhove (68), former vice rector at KU Leuven.
Read too. Creditors of Luc Martens fight limited living money for his wife
She did not want to respond to her husband’s arrest in recent weeks. Luc Martens was arrested on 28 February in their apartment in Roeselare because the former minister had violated the conditions after his earlier release.
Martens is suspected of, among other things, scams and forgery. The former politician for CPV/CD&V was discredited in September 2023 after it turned out that he borrowed large sums of money from numerous friendly entrepreneurs that he could not repay. Several victims went to court, and the honorary mayor of Roeselare has been sentenced to repayment several times.
© Simon Mouton
According to Martens himself, he got into financial trouble after scams by a gang that dealt with crypto coins and bitcoins. But he did not succeed in repaying his many loans, which, according to the public prosecutor, rose together to more than three million euros.
Read too. Former minister Luc Martens arrested after violating conditions in scams
Martens was brought before the investigating judge for the first time in June last year. Then he was allowed to have the cell again after one night, under strict conditions. For example, he was of course no longer allowed to commit new facts, and he also had to be guided for his financial problems, and seek psychological guidance.
But at the beginning of this year a new victim went to the court to report that he too no longer received tens of thousands of euros from Martens. He was arrested for those facts. He was now a little more than a month behind bars, but is now free again under strict conditions. One is that he must also be examined by a psychiatrist.
