A laboratory producing ecstasy pills has been discovered at a Belgian military base known to house part of the nuclear arsenal at NATO’s disposal, a court source told us on Tuesday.
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Two people were arrested at the scene who “are not defense employees,” a spokesman for the public prosecutor’s office in Belgium’s Limburg (North) province told AFP. They were released after questioning by investigators, according to prosecutors, who did not specify whether charges were filed. “On Wednesday, June 22, 2022, local police in Campine discovered a synthetic drug laboratory located at the military compound (NATO) in Peer” and “used for the manufacture of MDMA” (or Ecstasy), it said the prosecutor in a press release. The lab, adds the press release, “was dismantled by the specialized services of the Federal Police in collaboration with the National Institute of Criminology (NICC) and Civil Defense.” It seems that “a neighbor’s house” was involved in the creation of this secret laboratory, it is underlined. If the subject is very rarely mentioned by Belgian defense or the executive branch, this military domain – located in Kleine-Brogel in the municipality of Peer – is known in the country for harboring American nuclear weapons as part of NATO’s defense system. with other bases in Europe.
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As early as the late 1980s, a Belgian minister recognized the presence of nuclear weapons at the Kleine-Brogel base, where a contingent of the American army operates. However, details of their number were never given. The area surrounding the Belgian base is regularly the scene of demonstrations by pacifists and ecologists denouncing this lack of transparency. In 2019, Belgian MP Samuel Cogolati (Écolo) estimated that “between 10 and 20” nuclear warheads were stored at this base under American control. Additionally, the province of Limburg bordering the Netherlands, midway between the port of Antwerp and Germany’s Ruhr area, is a predominantly rural area popular with human traffickers to nest warehouses or clandestine drug processing laboratories.
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