“I am married, I work at Audi in Forest. I no longer smoke [de cannabis] for at least two years. I stopped hanging around this neighborhood [Orban] since the end of 2017,” said the witness, then aged 25.
“According to rumors, it was ‘Dij’ who fired the shot. ‘Dij’ is ‘Disjoncté’, it’s Dardour,” he continued, when asked about the gunshots of July 5, 2020. When I was still a ‘little troublemaker’, I knew Dardour a little, but I have no longer had contact with him since the end of 2017. Concerning the ‘kids’ who sell today in the Orban district, I don’t know nothing to say about it,” he said.
The Assize Court also heard late Tuesday afternoon a young man of 21 years old, under arrest warrant. The latter told investigators in 2020 that Mohamed-Amine Dardour and Youssef Jeddi were “crazy”, “sick” and that Dardour had told him: “if you don’t sell for me, I’m going to come to your house and we’ll burn your house.” But in court, he claimed that everything he said was false. “The ‘sheriffs’ threatened me and forced me to report all this,” he said.
On July 5, 2020 around 12:30 a.m., shots rang out on rue Alfred Orban in Forest. The lifeless body of Soufiane Benali, a 23-year-old man living in the neighborhood, was found lying in front of a laundry room. Two other individuals, Amin Jeddi and Adnane Mahroug, were injured. Shortly before the incident, the three friends were sitting on the steps of the laundry room talking.
The investigations were entrusted to the “Silva” brigade of the Brussels-Midi local police zone, before passing into the hands of the Brussels PJF three days after the facts, due to errors made by the “Silva” brigade. It appears from an investigation by Committee P that several police officers from this brigade allowed the “sheriffs”, three bosses from the Orban district, to carry out arrests.
Mohamed-Amine Dardour, Youssef Jeddi and Younes Bakkali are accused of being authors or co-authors of the assassination of Soufiane Benali and attempted assassination of the two other victims. According to the investigation, Dardour and Jeddi were the shooters, while Bakkali warned the first two of the presence of Soufiane Benali in front of the laundry room on rue Alfred Orban.
Mohamed-Amine Dardour was at the head of a criminal association active in the sale of cannabis and cocaine since 2018, one of the “points of sale” of which was the Orban district, according to the file. He allegedly recruited young boys, sometimes minors, to sell drugs on the street.
Dardour would have decided to attack Soufiane Benali because he was competing with him.
Witness hearings will continue on Thursday.
