Belgium: Prosecutors want 2 year sentence for CIA man
01 September 1996
Brussels prosecutors have demanded that Elio Ciolini, a CIA agent who was active in Belgium between 1985 and 1991 and is now being tried in his absence after escaping from an Italian jail, should receive two years imprisonment for a series of crimes he allegedly committed during his time in the country. Ciolini operated in Belgium at the high point of the "Nijvel" gang murders. He was also linked to other organised crime gangs in Belgium, as well as operating within far-right circles.
Ciolini first appeared in Belgium during the latter part of 1985, which happened to be roughly the period when the "Nijvel" gang, since allegedly linked to the Gladio project, were robbing warehouses on Overijse, Eigenbrakel and Aalst. The robberies led to the deaths of more than 15 people in what has since become known as the Brabant massacres. He was then introduced to far-right circles in Brussels through the businessman Robert Wellens.
Using these contacts Ciolini founded a number of small companies dealing in everything from arms to personal security. He quickly developed contacts with the Belgian underworld, in particular with a Thierry Smars, a member of the Haemers gang. Smars who was later found dead in mysterious circumstances, was alleged by the magazine Humo to have been recruited by Ciolini to membership of the Spanish anti-Basque death squads.
After his name had started to appear frequently during the Haemers trial the Justice department decided to interrogate Ciolini whilst he was in prison in Italy. During questioning Ciolini freely admitted that he was an agent for the CIA and that his companies were nothing more than a front for espionage.
Although most of his activities were known to the Belgian authorities since 1986, it took a remarkably long time for any decisive action to be taken against Ciolini. It appears that some pressure was exerted on the Justice department to drop the enquiry but they decided to proceed with the case just before the statute of limitations would have saved him from prosecution.
According to the De Morgen newspaper Ciolini was involved in far-right politics since the seventies. They claim that he was a member of the so-called "Black International" which was active in Spain, Italy, Bolivia and Belgium in the late seventies and early Eighties. He is supposed to have taken part in a meeting of far-right activists in Madrid in 1982 where they plotted to murder Alexander Haig, then Secretary-General of NATO, as well as Francois Mitterand. He was then involved in Bolivian death-squads. Later on he is alleged to have accused the "P2" lodge of being behind the Bologna bombing in which 80 people died. He was in jail in Italy waiting to tried for providing false information following this accusation when he mysteriously vanished from his cell. He has not been seen since.
De Morgen 26.9.96.