The Belgian intelligence service admits that it made a serious mistake in the Soetkin Collier (photo) case. Collier, one of the Urban Trad singers, was wrongly refused to join the group to the Eurovision Song Contest in Riga. That appears from a report by the Comité I, which controls the Belgian intelligence service.
The Belgian Intelligence Service (henceforth abbrev. BIS) had raised the matter of Soetkin Collier�s �extreme right-winged past� with several Walloon ministers, who based their actions on Collier�s political past as a youngster, when a few times she took part in Flemish nationalistic rallies. That was enough for the Walloon Minister of Culture to forbid her to represent Belgium and to join Urban Trad for the Eurovision Song Contest in Riga, in May of this year.
The Comité Intelligence that controls the BIS – and is aptly abbreviated Comité I – now calls the information spread by the BIS, �unsubtle, unverified and out of date�. Their report is frankly destructive about the action of BIS; �there was no single occasion to warn ministers about the extreme right-winged past of Collier. The woman was no threat at all to the Belgian state nor its democracy.�
Urban Trad, without Soetkin Collier, were the runner-ups at this year's Eurovision Song Contest with their song Sanomi.
Many thanks to our reader Roel for supplying this information!
