Nearly one in three officers in Belgium's federal judicial police say they have witnessed corruption or undue interference in investigations during their careers, according to an internal report cited Saturday by dailies Het Nieuwsblad and Le Soir.
The inquiry, launched in 2021, gathered responses from 1,776 of the 3,670 federal judicial police investigators.
According to the findings, 45.3% of respondents said they had often been concerned over undue influence in cases over the past five years. This included allegations of unlawful case closures, pressure exerted during investigations, and the falsification of documents.
Officers cited examples such as deliberately not investigating certain offenses to artificially lower crime figures or falsifying public documents to incriminate colleagues.
Respondents identified political figures as the main source of undue influence, the newspapers reported.
The report was submitted in the summer to the management of the federal judicial police and to Federal Police Commissioner General Eric Snoeck, but the findings were not made public.
Bernard Quintin, Belgium's home affairs minister, told parliament he had doubts about the investigation's methodology and representativeness.
Both the federal police and Quintin have called for an audit of the methodology used in the inquiry, according to Le Soir.
Opposition party Groen has called for parliamentary hearings with Quintin and senior police officials, and has not ruled out the launch of a formal inquiry.
"The voluminous report leaves no room for doubt: some of our officers are being manipulated and have far too little awareness of what is and is not acceptable," Groen lawmaker Matti Vandemaele said.
Belgium's federal judicial police are the specialized investigative branch of the federal police, responsible for handling serious and complex crime and working directly under the judicial authorities.
