Right of reply (english version)
1. Parliamentary Commission of Enquiry “Great Lakes” (GR 49): Minutes of the hearing of 25 October 2002:
 At the request of Philippe de Moerloose the Commission heard him. We invite readers to read the entire hearing and not just parts of it. This Commission on the date 20 February 2003 drew up its report, which did not call the company Demavia into question at all. The report indicates: “Philippe De Moerloose, executive director of the Belgian aviation company Demavia Airlines, refuted the allegation of Georges Berghezan according to which his company was supposed to have been involved in a questionable and spectacular sale of helicopters to the Congolese civilian airline company Air Katanga.
In the course of the hearing of 25 October 2002, De Moerloose produced documents showing that Demavia had only been involved indirectly in the transfer of helicopters. Demavia only followed up on the request to transport by airplane to Lubumbashi three Alouette helicopters, sold to Air Katanga by the French company Aeromecanic, and one Agusta helicopter, sold to Air Katanga by the British company Sloane Helicopters Ltd.; when it appeared that the equipment could not be transported directly by airplane, Demavia decided to request a transit licence and to transfer the helicopters to Lubumbashi through London Stansted. The transit licence was issued by the Secretary of State for Foreign Trade at the time, Pierre Chevalier. MK Airlines ultimately provided the transport of the helicopters to England. De Moerloose stressed that Demavia did not transport arms and did not operate as an intermediary between arms manufacturers and arms merchants.”
This case was closed with the writing up of this report.
2. Report of Anne Renauld of the GRIP of 2005 relating to the Democratic Republic of the CONGO: Natural Resources and Arms Sales: We also invite readers to read pages 14 and 17 relating to companies directed by Philippe de Moerloose in their entirety. On page 17, this report indicates: “The third transfer of money of 700,000 USD that was meant to be paid in favour of Demimpex-VRP to the account numbered 603-1039688-86 opened at the Belgolaise. This payment concerns the settlement, in full or in part, of three cases of the sale of vehicles, apparently for civilian use, for the benefit of the Presidency of the DRC. We had access, under the seal of confidentiality, to various documents of Demimpex-VRP relating to these transactions: order forms, purchase and sales invoices and proofs of shipping (“bill of loading” and “airway bill”). These documents convinced us of the perfect regularity of these operations for this company." It should be noted that the company DSA was re-sold at the end of 2006 to the company Group 4S and that the company OSS was liquidated in 2010.
The triangle payment (state (customer), public company (the state’s creditor) and supplier) is a practice which is no longer done.
3. UN Report S/2009/603 relayed by the Belgian Media La Libre and De Standaard: This report mentions that in his capacity as majority shareholder of the aviation company Hewa Bora and Director of the company Demimpex Philippe de Moerloose acted as a “broker for a delivery of military vehicles to the Congolese Defence Ministry without having a licence to do so, according to the Belgian authorities,” adding that “the aviation company was involved in repeated violations of Resolution 1807 by the Sudan, which prohibits the supplying of arms to armed groups in the Congo”.
We are sorry that the writer of this report did not send a draft report in order to discuss the content of this concerning Demimpex and Hewa Bora. In fact, it is regrettable that the UN did not check its information prior to its publication. When we contacted them, the report was already final.
Our right of reply, which appeared in the media La Libre and De Standaard, is the following:
  • The company Demimpex and the Hewa Bora company never made a delivery of military vehicles to the Ministry of Defence in violation of the regulation concerning licences for the delivery of military materials or of the embargo aimed at by Resolution 1807.
  • Questioned by the expert group in the month of September 2009, Philippe de Moerloose’s secretariat supplied the information required by this group relating to the deliveries made by the companies that he directs or controls.
  • Essentially this consists of lorries with trailers in new condition. Intended for the transport of infrastructure materials (civil engineering), these lorries are still located in the region of the Lower Congo.
  • Demimpex is a large Brussels company, nominated for eight consecutive years for the “Trends Gazelle” by the magazine Trends Tendance. Demimpex officially distributes the Nissan, Volkswagen, John Deere, Hitachi, and Michelin makes in the DRC.
  • As with all civilian aviation companies, the airplanes of the Hewa Bora company were requisitioned by the Ministry of Defence of the RDC, of which the expert group was informed and which has become public knowledge.
4. Other articles found on the Internet (on search engines
 On the 28th of October 2010, our lawyer sent some letters to SF Bayview, Sankurunews, Nowpublic and Towards Freedom in roder to ask them to remove all mistaken information relation to Philippe de Moerloose.

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