BRUSSELS--A Belgian court ruled on Thursday that police raids conducted as part of an inquiry into allegations of child abuse by Belgian priests were illegal, throwing the full investigation into doubt.
The ruling means Belgian prosecutors must hand back documents taken from the home of the former archbishop of Belgium, Cardinal Godfried Danneels, and other evidence gathered from church offices during raids in June, an official said.
"The seizures were illegal because basically the investigating judge went on a fishing expedition," Danneels' lawyer, Fernand Keuleneer, told Reuters. "He did not have sufficiently precise information."
The decision is a serious setback for Belgian prosecutors, who have yet to bring any charges in the abuse investigation. Belgian authorities have been criticised for investigative shortcomings in the past, most prominently in the case of Marc Dutroux, who kidnapped and raped six children in the 1990s.
Thurday's court ruling is one of two judgments looking at different aspects of June's coordinated raids. The second judgment, which examined whether documents should have been seized from a commission set up by the Belgian Catholic Church in 2000 to investigate allegations of abuse, was taken behind closed doors and remains sealed.
Once that ruling is made public it will be clear whether the investigation has any chance of continuing.