3.7 KiB
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Mayor of Knokke-Heist from 1979 until his death in 2021, grandson of a governor-general of the Congo, named by the X-Dossier witnesses X1 and X2 and investigated in 2020 for conflict of interest. | 1941-10-20 | 2021-02-19 | Knokke-Heist, Belgium |
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2026-05-15 | 2026-10-09 |
Leopold Lippens was born in 1941 into a family whose members included his father, also mayor of Knokke-Heist, and his grandfather, a politician and former governor-general of the Belgian Congo who was made a baron by Leopold III in 1936; Lippens inherited the title on his father's death in 1986. He moved into his father's old office as mayor in 1979 and held it until his death. By his own account he knew Jackie Kennedy and Ted Kennedy, and he became friends with Donald Trump over golf. In 1990 he banned "frigobox tourists" who brought their own lunch to the beach. He stepped back for health reasons in November 2020, was found to have leukemia, and died on February 19, 2021, at 79, during a council meeting he could not attend. His brother is the banker Count Maurice Auguste Lippens.12
The Tolpaertpolder Inquiry
In January 2020 the West Flanders prosecutor's office in Bruges opened an investigation into whether Lippens was guilty of a conflict of interest. The municipality wanted several hundred homes built in the Tolpaertpolder, which required rezoning agricultural land. Audit Vlaanderen, an agency of the Flemish government, had received information that Lippens had taken part in council debates on a part of the polder in which members of his family, including his children, had interests, and found that he should have recused himself.3
X-Dossier Allegations
In the X-Dossier investigation under Judge Jean-Marc Connerotte, the witness X1, Regina Louf, named Leopold and Maurice Lippens, with Paul Vanden Boeynants and Baron Benoit de Bonvoisin, among her most violent abusers, and described abuse at apartments in Knokke. The witness X2 said she had been at parties with underage girls in villas in Knokke, including Lippens's, and at the Hotel Cromwell, with his friend Etienne Davignon. Lippens was never charged.4
Footnotes
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"Leopold Lippens, the baron-mayor of Knokke, dies at 79." The Brussels Times, February 20, 2021, archived March 2, 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210302173436/https://www.brusselstimes.com/news/belgium-all-news/155873/leopold-lippens-mayor-knokke-dies-at-79-congo-baron-michelin-kennedy-trump-leukaemia/ ↩︎
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"Mayor Leopold Lippens of Knokke-Heist has died aged 79." VRT NWS, February 19, 2021, archived February 20, 2021. ↩︎
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Goedgebeur, Helen. "Is Leopold Lippens schuldig aan belangenvermenging? Parket voert onderzoek naar burgemeester Knokke-Heist." VRT NWS, January 7, 2020, citing De Standaard; translated from the Dutch. https://web.archive.org/web/20200108234511/https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2020/01/07/is-leopold-lippens-schuldig-aan-belangenvermenging-parket-voert/ ↩︎
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Bulté, Annemie, Douglas De Coninck, and Marie-Jeanne Van Heeswyck. De X-dossiers: wat België niet mocht weten over de zaak-Dutroux. Antwerp: Houtekiet, 1999, 543 pp., ISBN 90-5240-536-0, and the leaked summary of the X-file investigation published by WikiLeaks in 2009. ↩︎