Oddly, a judge had issued a search warrant at Mr. Finné’s home. The latter owned several dogs, three of which were euthanized without even trying to contact the family first. This, once again, faded into the background. We fantasized quite a bit about Mr. Finné who, manager of a bank branch on Avenue Louise, near the courthouse, knew people, particularly in the judicial police.
Returning from the Grand Duchy in the afternoon, he who was usually armed was curiously not that day. According to witnesses, one of the perpetrators approached him and turned the body around as if to stare at him and then shot him in the head. The gesture made people think that the perpetrators knew Mr. Finné. We fantasized about it a lot, but today we consider that it was not necessary. Léon simply happened to be, unfortunately, at the wrong time in the wrong place.
Out of time
These circumstances explain why her daughter was so involved. Who ? For what ? Patricia Finné never gave up knowing, becoming over time one of the most publicized faces of the victims’ families.
On February 3, 2019, a law was promulgated. The relatives obtained the right to exceptional assistance, in an amount between 500 and 125,000 euros, linked to the damage created by the fact that the investigation lasted an exceptionally long time without reaching a conclusion, the perpetrators not having been identified and even their motives remaining unknown. The request had to be submitted within three years of the promulgation of the law, therefore before February 8, 2022. However, Patricia Finné only submitted hers on October 13, 2022, eight months after the deadline. Therefore, the Commission for Victim Support rejected the request.
EXCLUSIVE: An ignored fact linked to the Brabant Killings
Patricia Finné is not the type to give up like that. “I submitted my application a few months late, she conceded. But I’ve been waiting for forty years to find out who killed my father.”. Ms. Finné addressed the Council of State. According to our information, he has just proven him right. To explain the delay, Patricia cited the confinement periods linked to Covid, which delayed everything. And above all, supporting certificates, that she suffered three strokes, and the first in February 2019, that is to say when the law came out. Strokes required very long recovery times.
To prove her right, the administrative judges noted that the Commission for Victim Assistance did not provide adequate reasons for its decision to reject Ms. Finné’s request, therefore rejecting it in violation of the Constitution which requires reasons to be given. administrative acts and decisions.
-After the judgment of the Council of State, the Commission will have to re-examine Ms Finné’s request. It is a second chance for the one who, highly publicized, carried on her shoulders the main weight of the victims’ fight to uncover the truth of the killings in Brabant.
The incredible end of the investigation
In the interview, Patricia Finné wanted to make it known that she remains, six months after the official announcement from the federal prosecutor’s office, “shocked, scandalized, devastated by the decision to close the file.” One of the last lines of investigation consisted of tracing the individuals cited in the file in one capacity or another. There are between 3,000 and 4,000. Including a few women.
What happened to them? Which ones died? Which ones were cremated? Which, still alive, lead a seemingly uneventful existence. Who are those who went under the radar, went to be forgotten abroad and whose trace we lost, so we had to locate them one by one?
Brabant killings, an unprecedented operation: hundreds of “suspects” invited to give their DNA
This titanic work, carried out by a single investigator, lasted two years. It was to lead to DNA research. In several dozen cases, it actually led to exhumations, unfortunately only in Belgium. It ultimately came to nothing.
Except to demonstrate this. If we were here, after forty years, having to go fishing, it was because we actually had no serious leads, we were nowhere. Perhaps we were wrong to overly demonize the people who committed these atrocities. We gave them more importance and strength, in our imagination, and we thus made them invisible because this led, unconsciously, to not looking where we needed to.
