The retired King of the Belgians has been ordered to take a DNA paternity test by a Brussels court, raising the prospect of finally resolving whether he is the real father of Delphine Boël, a 50-year-old aristocrat artist.
King Albert II, who has refused to recognise Ms Boël as his daughter for more than a decade, must submit to the test within three months or be legally presumed to be the multi-media artist’s father.
An earlier court-ordered DNA test proved that Jacques Boël, scion of one of Belgium’s richest industrial dynasties, was not her biological father. Since that 2013 test, Ms Boël, who has two children, has tried to prove that Albert is her father.
The former monarch, 83, abdicated in 2013 in favour of his son Philippe after 20 years on the throne. The decision also cost him his immunity to court judgments such as the paternity test, which would be a saliva test carried out on Albert, Ms Boël and her mother at a Brussels hospital.
Ms Boël’s lawyers said in their statement that they were pleased with the “strong affirmation of the principle of acting in the interests of the child” as she seeks legal confirmation of her true identity.
The book alleged the King, who no longer has a public role, had a long extra-marital affair with Ms Boël’s mother Sybille de Selys Longchamps, a baroness, which resulted in the birth of a daughter in the 1960s.
The affair ended in 1976 after Albert chose to stay with Paola rather than abdicate to be with Mrs de Selys Longchamps, she has claimed.
The court decision, made public on Monday, overturned an earlier ruling and cannot be appealed.
The palace told Belgian media that it would not comment on the case, insisting it was “in the private domain.”
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Source: telegraph.co.uk
