THE son of a wealthy businessman and art collector was remanded in custody in Belgium today after confessing to killing his father’s second wife, with whom he had financial disputes.

Nicolas Ullens de Schouten, 57, “attributed the crime to a family dispute, of a financial nature,” the public prosecutor’s office in Brabant, the French-speaking province where the events took place, explained on Wednesday.

According to the first evidence of the investigation, the 57-year-old opened fire targeting his stepmother, 70-year-old Miriam Ullens de Schouten, at the moment when she was leaving the family home in Lasne in her car. Miriam was driving and her husband was a passenger.

Nicholas’ car initially collided with theirs. The perpetrator admitted that he had set up a cartel for them, after they kicked him out after a heated argument.

He then fired six times, killing Miriam and wounding his father, Baron Guy Ullens de Schouten, in the leg.

Today he was prosecuted for homicide and violation of the law on the use of weapons and it was decided to pre-trial detention. Nicolas de Schouten, a former State Security (intelligence) agent, handed himself in to police shortly after the murder.

The family is well known in the business world. Baron Guy Ullens de Schouten, who is in his 9th decade of life, was for 40 years the head of an industrial group whose main activity was the production of sugar. He then expanded into the food and textile sectors, through the investment fund Artal-Europe, of which he was one of the main shareholders. After he retired in 2000, he invested in a Swiss-based foundation that “manages charitable and artistic actions,” as it says on its website. Among other things, he supports Chinese artists while he also owns a school where thousands of children attend, in Nepal.

The baron’s second wife, Miriam, founded the Maison Ullens fashion house in Brussels in 2011.