BELGIUM's highest court yesterday rejected an initial request for the deputy prime minister, Mr Elio di Rupo, to be indicted on charges of having sex with a minor due to lack of solid evidence.
The parliamentary speaker, Mr Raymond Langendries, announced: "Given that the allegations of a single witness with no credibility were not supported by a single objective element, there is not the slightest serious proof to justify an indictment."
However, the court, which has spent nearly three weeks examining the request, said it had reached its conclusion without taking into account fresh evidence submitted by the prosecutor at the end of last week.
The court said that it had not been formally authorised by parliament to examine the new evidence, as required under the Belgian constitution.
A special parliamentary commission was expected last evening to ask the court to examine the supplementary evidence, prolonging the uncertainty over Mr Di Rupo's future.
If the court finally rules that there is a case for him to answer, his resignation would become inevitable, triggering a crisis that could bring down the centre left coalition government of Mr JeanLuc Dehaene.
The initial evidence against Mr Di Rupo had been made to look shaky by revelations about the character of Mr Oliver Trusgnach, the key witness who claims he had sex with Mr Di Rupo when he was 15.
Mr Trusgnach, who is in prison awaiting trial on theft charges, has been described by his mother and friends as a "Walter Mitty" figure, prone to inventing stories about himself. Numerous acquaintances have also come forward to insist he could not have met Mr Di Rupo before he was 18. The age of consent in Belgium is 16.
Mr Di Rupo, who has never hidden his homosexuality, has always denied the charges against him and last week expressed confidence he would be cleared.
Mr Dehaene has publicly backed Mr Di Rupo, and other ministers have expressed concern that he has been the victim of the backlash over an unrelated child abduction and murder scandal which the Belgian authorities are seen as having bungled, provoking enormous public anger.
The interior minister, Mr Johan Vande Lanotte, suggested last week that his socialist colleague may have been the victim of a police plot.