Former defence minister will not be charged over miltary camp explosion

Former defence minister François Bausch and former army chief Alain Duschène will not have to stand trial for the fatal explosion at the Waldhof military camp in 2019, the judicial administration said on Wednesday.

Luxembourg District Court’s Council Chamber had decided at the end of September that there was sufficient evidence to charge both Bausch and Duschène with “negligent bodily harm” in relation to the explosion that killed two munitions experts and left two soldiers from another unit badly injured.

However, Bausch appealed the decision. His lawyer, André Lutgen, wrote in a statement at the time that Bausch’s legal team “do not agree in any way with the reasoning, either in law or in fact, of this court.”

The Council Chamber of the Court of Appeal overturned the decision at first instance on Tuesday. The chamber came to the conclusion that there were not enough elements to establish a specific criminal offence on the part of the two individuals.

Accordingly, the appeals court decided there was no way to establish that Bausch and Duschène had been informed about the demining operation during which the explosion occurred, and they had not specifically contributed to the accident, even if they were aware of the safety problems in the military camp.

The explosion, on 14 February 2019, was caused when a US artillery shell from the Second World War detonated as it was being prepared for transport to Belgium.

According to the judicial administration’s press office, the latest decision concludes the criminal investigation into the Waldhof explosion.

(This article was first published by Luxemburger Wort. Machine translated with editing by Duncan Roberts)