Justice minister Verlinden denies wrongdoing over i-Police contacts with prosecutors

A defence before MPs

Justice Minister Annelies Verlinden (CD&V) faced a barrage of questions in the Chamber's justice committee on 4 November 2026 over the i-Police digital police project. She told MPs she had nothing to hide and that she was holding her position. Le Soir reports that she spoke for almost 25 minutes, her first appearance before MPs since a run of revelations over the past two weeks. Opposition parties led the attacks, but critics within the governing majority also pressed her on how the project was handled.

One contact, the minister says

Verlinden said her spokesperson had contacted the spokeswoman of the Brussels prosecutor's office only once, on 4 February. That call followed a De Standaard Instagram video that wrongly said an investigation into the minister had been opened, and the false claim stayed online for about an hour. The spokesperson wanted to verify the claim before responding.

“That is the only contact my spokesperson has been questioned about.”

According to De Standaard's own information, the contacts between the two spokespeople involved more than one exchange and went beyond i-Police alone.

Suspicion and the prosecutor's probe

In late October 2026 it emerged that both spokespeople have been placed under suspicion of breaching professional secrecy. The Brussels prosecution is examining whether the prosecutor's spokeswoman passed confidential information from the i-Police investigation to Verlinden's spokesperson. Verlinden acknowledged that her spokesperson did contact his counterpart at the prosecutor's office, and she framed that step as an attempt to check an error. The opposition argued that the matter goes beyond a single phone call, and the timeline below sets out the dates reported so far.

Opposition and majority critique

Green MP Matti Vandemaele pressed the minister directly during the session.

“Do you think we are stupid?”

PS MP Ridouane Chahid argued that she should have contacted the prosecution through a lawyer rather than through her spokesperson. Anders MP Katja Gabriëls accused her of again casting herself as a victim, while N-VA MP Maaike De Vreese said the affair damages political credibility and that of the police. Vooruit's Brent Meuleman called the spending completely unacceptable. CD&V MP Franky Demon regretted the failure of the project but attacked what he called personal accusations and suspicions against the minister.

Costs and the Court of Audit

The Court of Audit raised the project's cost from 75.8 million euros, the figure first announced, to 139.4 million euros. The French consultancy Sopra Steria was given the steering of the project in 2021, and the project was abandoned in 2025 for lack of satisfactory results. According to La Libre, Interior Minister Bernard Quintin (MR) unilaterally ended the contract with Sopra Steria at the end of 2025. Verlinden argued that the sums spent are not entirely lost, pointing to damages proceedings launched by the Belgian state and to tools still in use, such as the internal GPI platform. She told MPs that the amounts may not count as definitively lost taxpayer money until the legal procedure concludes.

Initially announced75.8

Court of Audit figure139.4

Initially announced

75.8 million euros

Court of Audit figure

139.4 million euros

Data from the article text

Her past work and the blame game

Media reports highlight Verlinden's earlier work as a lawyer for Sopra Steria in April 2019, before she became minister. She also previously worked at DLA Piper, the firm that defends Sopra Steria in the dispute, and La Libre reports that her spouse is reportedly a senior figure at the same firm. Verlinden pointed to her predecessor as Interior Minister, Jan Jambon, and to the former Vivaldi parties, PS, Anders and Ecolo-Groen, which accuse her of washing their hands. She also criticised the press for sensational communication and called for a clear line between facts and speculation.