Former politician and spouse lose appeal, get 27 years for murder

The former mayor of Linkebeek and his wife have not only lost the appeal of their murder convictions, they were given an additional four years by the court.

Christian Van Eyken and his wife, Sylvia Boigelot (pictured), were convicted in 2019 of murdering Boigelot’s husband. Marc Dellea died in his Laken apartment from a bullet wound to the head in 2014.

Van Eyken and Boigelot were having an affair at the time and were caught on video entering and leaving Dellea’s home on the night of the murder. The court also confirmed that both of them lied during the investigation.

Van Eyken is a former mayor of Linkebeek, one of the facility communes in the Brussels periphery – meaning that French speakers have certain language rights. He was the mayor from 1993 to 2006 and was the only French-speaking member of the Flemish parliament, representing Union des Francophones (UF) until 2019.

The pair have always maintained they were innocent, in the face of strong evidence to the contrary. A Brussels court convicted them of murder in 2019, giving them both a 23-year prison sentence. The appeals court not only upheld the conviction, it added four years to each of their sentences.

The court said that the sentencing took into account the far-reaching “efforts and cunning” used by the defendants to cover up the crime and to deny it. The couple have been free up to now, and, following the sentencing, the public prosecutor asked that they both immediately be taken into custody. “They have the financial and intellectual means to evade their punishment,” the prosecuting attorney said.

Photo ©Laurie Dieffembacq/BELGA