A jury has convicted six men of arranging the 1991 murder of socialist politician Andre Cools after an eight-week trial that was unable to fully resolve one of Belgium's most enduring political mysteries.
Today's verdict by a jury in the eastern town of Liege brought to an end one of the country's longest criminal cases but failed to clearly identify the mastermind behind the assassination plot and establish a definitive motive.
Cools, a former federal minister and king-maker of socialist politics in the French-speaking region of Wallonia, was shot dead by two Tunisian hitmen as he left his girlfriend's home on July 18, 1991.
His death sent his Socialist Party into disarray for the rest of the decade and exposed the inadequacies of the judicial system to quickly bring the case to court.
The investigation into his death led to a series of bribery scandals that tarnished the reputation of senior political figures in his party, including Willy Claes, who was forced to resign as NATO secretary general in 1995.
The hitmen were convicted in an earlier trial and sent to prison in Tunisia.
Alain Van der Biest, a former Cools protege and former federal pensions minister, was suspected of masterminding the assassination, but he denied any involvement up until his suicide in March 2002.
The six suspects, who face up to 30 years in prison, included Van der Biest's former private secretary. Two other suspects were acquitted, the public prosecutor's office said.