Albert Raes

With a sentence of November 10, 2009 Eric Van de Weghe and Christian Amory were condemned for having sold forged documents to de Bonvoisin, enabling him to claim that Raes was a KGB-agent. The judgment said: 'It is without doubt that the falsified documents were transmitted by de Bonvoisin to the Belgian police authorities with the purpose of harming Albert Raes'. De Bonvoisin was not condemned because serious health problems prevented him from appearing in court. Van den Weghe was condemned to 9 months imprisonment and Amory to two months.

In 2000 he was made an honorary consul of Morocco for the Flemish region. From 2001 till 2011 he was vice-president of the consular corps in West-Flanders.

The minister was however forced in 1993 by the Conseil d'Etat to appoint Raes in a function equivalent to his previous one, and he became director general for Legislation and Cults within the Ministry of Justice, remaining in this function until his retirement in 1997.

In June 1990, the then minister of Justice Melchior Wathelet removed Raes from the secret services and appointed him in the purely honorary function of deputy secretary general of the ministry of Justice.

As for the extreme left, the Security Services and Albert Raes had to fight the Cellules Communistes Combattantes (CCC) of Pierre Carette, which perpetrated bomb attacks resulting in 1984-1985 in two deaths and several severely injured victims. The secret services succeeded in arresting them and in making them condemned to long prison sentences.

From 1977 to 1990 Raes was the dean of the Club of Bern, of which he was a co-founder in 1970. The heads of the secret services of a dozen European countries, including Switzerland, met regularly to exchange information and evaluate sensible dossiers.

During the years 1970 and 1980 the Belgian Security services encountered regularly controversy. Allegations of malfunctioning were made, although never substantiated.

In 1969 he was appointed assistant administrator-general of the Belgian Security services, under Ludovic Caeymaex, to who he succeeded in 1977. He remained in this capacity until June 1990.

In 1955 he organized a congress in Bruges on behalf of the Nouvelles Equipes Internationales, the group of Christian democratic parties in Europe, predecessor of the European Christian-democratic party (EVP). He also organized a gathering of the European Young Christian Democrats. He completed his military service at the First Regiment of Horse Guards and ended as a reserve officer. Back in Bruges, he started working at the offices of the Officer of public prosecution.

He finished his secondary school at the Sint-Lodewijks College in Bruges (rhetorics 1951) and continued at the University of Louvain. He graduated in 1955 as a doctor of law.

He is an honorary member of the Fraternelle des agents parachutists belges 1940-1945.

Albert Raes (Bruges 21 February 1932) was a Belgian magistrate and was head of the Belgian Security Services from 1977 until 1990.