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Delphine Boël’s has been declared inadmissible by the Belgian Court in Brussels, and thus, Belgian King Albert II cannot legally be declared Delphine’s father. Her legal father remains Jacques Boël, despite the fact that DNA-testing has proved that he is not her biological father.

“A biological bond alone does not suffice to prove a father-daughter relationship. There are other components, like the integration into a family,” the judge argued. Jacques Boël has always acted like Delphine’s father, she carries his name, and she grew up in the Boël family.

This decision from the court blocks Delphine’s next step in the procedure; DNA-testing on King Albert II to prove that he is her biological father.

Delphine was born in 1968 as the daughter of Baroness Sybille de Selys Longchamps and was officially recognised by her mother’s husband Jonkheer Jacques Boël (of which the English equivalent would be Esquire). The King made a reference to a crisis ‘thirty years ago’ in the 1999 Christmas speech but has otherwise remained silent on the subject. Delphine Boël has always claimed that it was not about any inheritance, as her legitimate father is much richer than the King.

In 2013, Delphine summoned King Albert and two of his children, the Duke of Brabant, now King Philippe and Princess Astrid of Belgium, the Archduchess of Austria-Este to court in hopes of obtaining DNA for testing purposes. The King enjoyed immunity at the time, but his abdication in July 2013 opened the way for a new procedure.

She ran into some trouble when she wished to revoke the paternity of Jacques Boël, as this had to be done before you turn 22 or within a year of learning that your parent is not actually your parent. Belgium’s constitutional court has now ruled that the right to know who your biological parent is, is more important than the age limit. </s> LONDON– The parents of the terminally ill British baby Charlie Gard have given up their legal fight over treatment for their son in the US.

Their lawyer Grant Armstrong told the UK High Court Monday that experts have said that the “window of opportunity no longer exists.”

“For Charlie, it is too late…treatment cannot offer a chance of success,” he told the court.

Charlie’s parents Chris Gard and Connie Yates made their decision following the latest medical reports and scans, the Press Association reported.

“Dark days lie ahead for these parents…” they want to spend time with Charlie,” Armstrong said.

Charlie, whose first birthday is August 4, was born with a genetic mutation called mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome. It leads to weakened muscles and organ dysfunction, among other symptoms. The prognosis is poor for most patients. Charlie is unable to breathe or move on his own.

Great Ormond Street Hospital — where Charlie has been since October 2016 — received permission from the European Court of Human Rights in June to discontinue life support.

But his parents wanted to bring him to the US for an experimental therapy called nucleoside bypass therapy. It has never been used to treat Charlie’s form of mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome.

The doctors at GOSH have argued that every medical option has already been considered and treatment in another country would not be in Charlie’s best interest.

“These parents should know that no parent could have done more than they did for their child,” said Justice Nicholas Francis, who is presiding over the case.

He was critical of those who weighed in on the case without knowing the facts. Both the Pope and US President Donald Trump have shown their support for Charlie’s parents.

“When cases such as this go viral, the watching world feels entitled to weigh in regardless of whether or not they are informed on the facts of the case,” he said. </s> "If there is one lesson to learn from this case, it is that the political exploitation of the legal system must end," lawyer Marie Dosé commented the day after client was declared not guilty in a case that started 10 years ago with 150 masked police officers raiding a libertarian commune in rural France.

The interior minister at the time, Michèle Alliot-Marie, claimed that an "ultraleft, anarcho-autonomous movement linked to sabotage" had been broken up and public prosecutor Jean-Claude Marin described the farmhouse's residents as "an invisible cell ... whose aim was armed struggle".

But on Thursday presiding magistrate Corinne Goetzmann declared the "Tarnac group, named after the village where they lived, a "fiction" and slammed police for "ruses and stratagems" in their attempts to obtain guilty verdicts against the eight accused.

In 2017 a court had already ordered the accusation of terrorism to be dropped.

This week Goetzman cleared the alleged ringleaders, Dosé's client Yildune Lévy and her former partner Julien Coupat, of accusations that they had sabotaged a railway line near Paris, only finding them guilty of refusing to give DNA samples and refusing to punish them even for that.

Five other accused, Elsa Hauck, Bertrand Deveaud, Manon Glibert, Benjamin Rosoux and Mathieu Burnel, were cleared of all charges, while a sixth, Christophe Becker, was given a four-month suspended sentence for receiving stolen documents and trying to falsify administrative documents and a 500-euro suspended fine for refusing to give a DNA sample.

Only Lévy and Deveaud were present in court for the verdict.

"We are white, young, of middle-class origin, with cultural capital," Lévy commented. "People with different first names, the Mamadoue, the Fatimas, how can they overcome what we have overcome?" </s> Romania’s justice minister Tudorel Toader announced he started the procedure to revoke the chief prosecutor of the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) Laura Codruta Kovesi.

He presented a 36-page report on the DNA chief’s activity during an 80-minute press briefing. The report included 20 “acts and facts” related to the DNA chief prosecutor’s activity, all of them negative. Some of them were based on the Constitutional Court’s decisions on the conflicts between the DNA and the Parliament and Government. Others were based on media reports and interviews that Kovesi gave to the local and international media. Tudorel Toader said that Kovesi’s statements in these interviews damaged Romania’s image abroad.

The justice minister criticised the DNA chief prosecutor for her authoritarian management style and her involvement in investigations, for trying to get convictions at any price, for the higher number of defendants acquitted following DNA investigations and the higher costs of DNA investigations, and for delaying the investigations in some cases. However, he didn’t answer the journalists’ request for examples based on which he formulated these critics.

At the end of his presentations, Tudorel Toader acknowledged DNA’s results in fighting corruption and said the fight against corruption should continue in Romania. However, he added that the DNA must continue to function legally and that the institution does not identify with its chief prosecutor, whose actions “have demonstrated that they can endanger the very institution that she has been managing”.

In the end, he summed his critics on Kovesi’s activity in several words: “excess of authority, discretionary behaviour, defying the Parliament, challenging the Constitutional Court’s decisions and authority”.

“For these acts and facts that are intolerable in a rule of law, I start the procedure to revoke the DNA chief prosecutor,” Toader concluded.

The report will be sent to the Superior Magistracy Council (CSM) and to President Klaus Iohannis, the only one who has the authority to revoke the DNA chief. President Iohannis said last week that he was satisfied with DNA’s activity and that he saw no reasons to revoke the DNA chief.

The justice minister started presenting his report on the management of the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) at 18:00. He said the report was not an evaluation of DNA’s activity, which would be presented to the Parliament together with the reports on the activity of the Public Ministry and the Anti-Organized Crime Directorate – DIICOT.

He added that the report he would present was strictly on the activity of DNA’s management. The report has 36 pages and the minister warned the journalists it would take a while for him to present it.

He said the conclusions of the report were based on 20 acts and facts related to the DNA chief’s activity between February 2017 and February 2018.

The justice minister’s report will also be published on the Justice Ministry’s website after his presentation. </s> Belgian officials have requested DNA samples from children adopted from the Democratic Republic of Congo to determine if they were falsely declared orphans and kidnapped, BBC reports.

The adoptive parents of around 15 children have been contacted, according to officials.

Prosecutors suspect the biological parents thought their kids were going to a holiday camp, not to an orphanage that has since been shuttered.

“There are only losers in this story and the judge will have to determine where the best interests of the kids lie,” Flemish MP Lorin Parys told the BBC.

While Congo has among the highest rates of orphaned kids, it stopped issuing exit permits for adoptions in 2013 amid trafficking concerns, according to BBC. Cases underway at the time were still processed.

Belgian authorities began investigating child-smuggling from the central African nation in 2017 when a report revealed four adopted children had falsely been declared orphans. Belgian journalists traced the cases back to biological parents who said their children never returned from what was billed as a youth camp. The kids, who were between the ages of two and four at the time, were instead taken to the Tumaini orphanage.

After the 2017 report, Belgian officials looked into all the country’s adoptions from the Tumaini orphanage. The 15 cases involved children who arrived between 2013 and 2015, and whose biological parents are believed to still be alive, BBC reports.

“They are different age ranges but the kids who’ve been here the shortest time have been here three and a half years, so they have all been integrated,” said Parys. “The parents here have done nothing wrong and of course the parents in Congo are devastated that they lost their kids under false pretenses.” </s> Congolese children were kidnapped, taken to an orphanage and put up for adoption in Belgium after their parents were tricked into sending them to a holiday camp, it has emerged.

Belgian prosecutors have officially asked "about 15" families for DNA samples from their adopted children in a bid to trace their biological parents. The adoptive families had thought the biological parents were dead.

“This is a drama. How do you explain such things to those children? Not to mention the pain that real parents must feel in the Congo ", Lorin Parys, a Flemish politician with an adopted son, told the Het Nieuwsblad newspaper.

The DNA demand applies to all Congolese children adopted in Belgium from November 2013 and comes as an 18 month investigation builds up a head of steam.

Prosecutors want the tests to find out the extent of the trafficking in Congolese children to Belgium, which infamously colonised a region including the present day Democratic Republic of Congo.

Investigators have identified at least four cases where a Congolese child adopted in Belgium had living biological parents thousands of miles away. The parents, who lived in the countryside, were convinced to send their children to a holiday camp in the capital Kinshasa. </s> The European Commission (EC) also reacted to the Romanian justice minister’s request to revoke the chief prosecutor of the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA), saying that it is interested to see how things will evolve in this case.

“The Commission is watching with caution and concern the latest developments. The independence of the judiciary in Romania and its ability to fight corruption effectively are fundamental elements for a strong Romania within the EU, as the EC president and first vice-president reminded in their joint statement last month. The Commission will follow the developments in the proceedings initiated against the DNA chief,” the EC said in a press release sent to local Digi24.

The Commission also said that, in all the previous reports made under the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism (CVM), the fact that “DNA has maintained its evolution despite intense pressure has been seen as a sign of resistance.”

The justice minister Tudorel Toader announced on Thursday evening, February 22, his decision to start the procedure to revoke the DNA chief prosecutor Laura Codruta Kovesi. He presented the reasons for this decision in an 80-minute press conference. All the conclusions are included in a 36-page report, which the minister said it would be published on the Justice Ministry’s website. However, the ministry’s website couldn’t be accessed after the minister’s conference, and was still down when this news was published.

The Presidential Administration reacted to the justice minister’s decision later the same evening, saying the president’s evaluation of the DNA’s management differs from that presented by the justice minister, and that it would analyze the justice minister’s report.

On Friday, when he was in Brussels for an informal meeting of the European Council, president Klaus Iohannis told journalists that the report presented by the justice minister lacked clarity and rationality. Also, he once again said that he sees no reasons to dismiss the DNA head. However, he also added that the report didn’t arrive at the Presidential Administration, and that he would present a more detailed opinion after reviewing the document.

Laudra Codruta Kovesi also reacted on Friday morning to the justice minister’s statements, saying she will “follow the legal procedure and be present, whenever needed, to answer, point by point, to all statements presented by the justice minister.” </s> (CNN) The parents of the terminally ill British baby Charlie Gard have given up their legal fight over treatment for their son in the United States.

Their lawyer Grant Armstrong told the UK High Court Monday that experts have said that the "window of opportunity no longer exists."

"For Charlie, it is too late ... treatment cannot offer a chance of success," he told the court.

Charlie's parents Chris Gard and Connie Yates made their decision following the latest medical reports and scans.

"Dark days lie ahead for these parents ... they want to spend time with Charlie," Armstrong said.

Rare genetic mutation

Charlie, whose first birthday is August 4, was born with a genetic disease called mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome. It leads to weakened muscles and organ dysfunction, among other symptoms. The prognosis is poor for most patients. Charlie is unable to breathe or move on his own.

With legal battle over, baby Charlie Gard will begin receiving palliative care.

Great Ormond Street Hospital -- where Charlie has been since October 2016 -- received permission from the European Court of Human Rights in June to discontinue life support in spite of his parents desire to bring him to the US for an experimental therapy called nucleoside bypass therapy. It has never been used to treat Charlie's form of mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome.

The doctors at GOSH have argued that every medical option has already been considered and treatment in another country would not be in Charlie's best interest.

Dr. Michio Hirano, a professor of neurology at the Columbia University Medical Center in New York, and a leading expert on Charlie's condition, flew to London last week to assess the child. Both he and prominent Vatican pediatrician Dr. Enrico Silvio Bertini asked for a brain and full body scan on Charlie, according to a statement handed out by the parents' lawyers.

"Sadly, following the body MRI the parents' worst fears have been confirmed by their team of international experts that it is too late to treat Charlie," the statement said. The MRI body scan gauged muscle wastage.

Hirano said a treatment known as nucleoside bypass therapy had a minimum 10% chance of bringing about significant improvement in Charlie's condition.

The lawyers said if Charlie had been able to have the treatment they had suggested earlier, then there might have been hope.

In ending their legal fight, the court issued a new judgment that upholds an April ruling to discontinue life support and provide Charlie with palliative care.

"Our staff share the parents' sadness over Charlie whom they have cared for with dedication during the months he has spent at Great Ormond Street Hospital," a statement said. The hospital acknowledged the complexity of the situation as one dealing with medical ethics and experimental treatment.

"These parents should know that no parent could have done more than they did for their child," said Justice Nicholas Francis, who is presiding over the case.

Chris Gard and Connie Yates speak following their decision to end their legal challenge.

He was critical of those who weighed in on the case without knowing the facts. Both the Pope and US President Donald Trump have shown their support for Charlie's parents.

"When cases such as this go viral, the watching world feels entitled to weigh in regardless of whether or not they are informed on the facts of the case," Justice Francis said Monday.

"Our son is an absolute warrior and we could not be prouder of him and we will miss him terribly," Yates told the court.

"Charlie has had a greater impact on and touched more people in this world in his 11 months than many people do in a lifetime.

Join the conversation See the latest news and share your comments with CNN Health on Facebook and Twitter.

"We will do our utmost to ensure that no parents have to go through what we have been through and the next Charlie that comes along will get this medicine before it's too late and Charlie will save many more lives in the future, no doubt about that.

"We are now going to spend our last precious moments with our son Charlie, who unfortunately won't make his first birthday in just under two weeks' time." </s> Figueres (Spain): Forensic experts in Spain have removed hair, nails and two long bones from Salvador Dali’s embalmed remains to find genetic samples for a paternity test—a move that opens the possibility for a woman who says she is the surrealist artist’s daughter to claim part of the Dali estate.

Officials said Friday that the artist’s mummified remains were so well conserved that even his famous moustache had survived the passing of time and remained in “its classic shape of ten past ten,” referring to the positions of the hands on a clock.

Dali was buried in the Dali Museum Theatre in the northeastern Spanish town of Figueres, his birthplace, when he died at 84 years old in 1989. The exhumation followed longstanding claims by Pilar Abel, a 61-year-old tarot card reader, who says her mother had an affair with Dali in the town.

In June, a Madrid judge finally ruled that a DNA test should be performed to find out whether her allegations were true.

Forensic experts opened the artist’s coffin on Thursday night in a sensitive operation that involved using pulleys to lift a 1.5-tonne stone slab.

Lluis Penuelas Reixach, the secretary general of the Gala Dali Foundation, said Dali’s remains—including his moustache—are well conserved, mummified after the embalming process applied 27 years ago. He was speaking to reporters on Friday during a press conference in Figueres.

According to judicial authorities, only five people—a judge, three coroners and an assistant—were allowed to oversee the removal of the samples out of respect for the remains and in order to avoid any contamination.

Representatives of the foundation managing Dali’s estate said on Friday the evidence backing Abel’s claims weren’t enough to justify the intrusive exhumation, and that it will continue a legal battle to nullify the paternity test.

Dali and his Russian wife Gala—whose birth name was Elena Ivanovna Diakonova—had no children of their own, although Gala had a daughter from an earlier marriage to French poet Paul Eluard.

Abel, who for a while made her living by reading tarot cards on local television, was born in Girona, a city close to Figueres. She has fought for the exhumation because she wants legal proof that the artist was her biological father after an alleged affair between her mother and Dali.

If proved right, she could claim one fourth of the painter’s estate which is now in the hands of a public foundation, according to her lawyer Enrique Blanquez. There are no current estimates of the value of that fortune.

If she is proved wrong, the Dali foundation will seek financial compensation for the costs of the exhumation.

Either way, minimizing the disruption to the museum’s operations and to the rest of Dali’s remains is the priority for the foundation managing Dali’s estate, according to its secretary. “It’s important for Salvador Dali to be returned to rest in the interior of his museum’s dome,” Penuelas said.

During a press conference this week, Abel explained how her mother and grandmother told the family secret when Abel was still young. Years later, she said she asked her mother again, who confirmed to her the story was true.

The foundation and the museum in Figueres took steps to make sure no images of the exhumation may emerge in public. Before work in the crypt began on Thursday, mobile phones were put in a deposit and a marquee was installed under the museum’s glass dome to prevent any photography or video from drones.

The biological samples will travel to a forensic laboratory in Madrid for analysis, a process that could take weeks.
A Belgian Court in Brussels declares that Delphine Boël’s case against former king Albert II of Belgium is inadmissible even though genetic testing has proved that her legal father Jacques Boël is not her biological father.