CHANGES HEADLINE, DECK, LEDE; ADDS STATEMENT BY NATO
By Melike Pala, Necva Tastan Sevinc, and Serife Cetin
BRUSSELS/ISTANBUL (AA) - NATO on Monday reaffirmed its zero-tolerance policy toward fraud and corruption, stressing its commitment to transparency "NATO has no tolerance for fraud or corruption," NATO spokesperson Allison Hart said in a statement to Anadolu.
Hart noted that the NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA) established its own investigative branch in 2023, following the adoption of the 2022 NATO-wide Strategy on the Prevention, Detection and Response to Fraud and Corruption.
"In the context of the cases in question, the NSPA proactively initiated cooperation with national law enforcement agencies and continues to offer full support to their respective probes of alleged criminal activity by a number of current and former agency personnel," she added.
The statement said NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte received a request from the Belgian Federal Prosecutor on May 12 to lift the functional immunity of three former and current NSPA staff members, which he granted on the same day.
To strengthen oversight, Rutte and the NSPA general manager have also set up a joint investigative task force between the NATO headquarters and the agency "to increase investigative capacity and fully investigate any potential fraud and corruption by agency personnel or contractors doing business with the agency," the statement said.
Three Belgian nationals have been arrested as part of an investigation into alleged corruption at NATO's Luxembourg-based procurement body, the NSPA, VRT News reported.
The arrests, which took place in May, are linked to one of three corruption cases that have come to light over the past year at the agency, which manages multi-billion-euro defense contracts on behalf of NATO member states.
The NSPA, headquartered in Capellen, Luxembourg, employs around 1,500 people and is expected to handle procurement contracts worth €10 billion ($11.6 billion) this year.
According to a joint investigation by the Belgian magazine Knack, newspapers Le Soir and Follow the Money, and La Lettre, the three suspects allegedly passed confidential information to defense firms seeking to secure lucrative NATO contracts covering aircraft, helicopters, ammunition, and fuel for the 2021-2025 period.
One of those arrested, identified as a 60-year-old ammunition specialist from the Belgian coastal town of Bredene, reportedly worked for the NSPA before founding private consultancy firms.
The other two suspects are former colleagues also accused of involvement in the same scheme, according to journalist Kristof Clerix, who helped uncover the story.
"Suppose you are a defense company and you want to sell to several NATO countries at once, it is best to work through the Luxembourg agency," Clerix said.
"But if a consultancy firm advising such companies obtains inside information, there is no longer a level playing field. That is what investigators are now trying to determine, whether confidential information was leaked in Luxembourg, and whether Belgians played a role in that."
Belgian prosecutors confirmed that one of the suspects remains in custody, another is under electronic surveillance, and a third has been released on conditional bail.