Bart van U. escaped mental clinic before politician's murder: report

Bart van U., who is accused of murdering his sister and former Minister Els Borst, seems to have escaped from a mental institution in Belgium shortly before Borst's violent murder, the AD reports.

Van U. was admitted to the Sint-Alexius mental institution in Grimbergen, Flanders in 2013 after the police found him in a disturbed state at the Israeli embassy in Brussels. He supposedly wanted to deliver a letter to the embassy, but no one would let him in. The police were called in and found that Van U. was carrying a knife with him.

After seeing the incoherent contents of his letter (supposedly conspiracy theories) the police contacted a psychiatrist to examine Van U. The psychiatrist decided that he had to be admitted. Van U. spent a month in the institution before he escaped. According to his lawyer, Noelle Pieterse, the institution did not notify the police about his escape as his involuntary admission would have ended a week later in any case.

Last month the DNA sample taken from Van U. after he was arrested for the murder of his sister, Lois van U., was found to match traces found at the crime scene of Els Borst's murder. Borst was killed in the garage of her home in Bilthoven on February 8th last year, about two months after Van U. escaped from the mental clinic.