Four days after the quintuple homicide that occurred on Saturday in the vicinity of Dunkirk (North), the suspect, a young man of 22, who had surrendered himself to the police a few hours after the events, was indicted in particular for “assassinations”, “murders”, and “violence with weapons”, announced the public prosecutor of Dunkirk, Charlotte Huet. He was presented to an investigating judge this Tuesday, after three days in police custody.
In detail, the suspect was indicted for “assassination” against three people: a business manager from Wormhout, and two security agents working not far from there. The charge of “murder preceded, accompanied or followed by another crime” was held for two other men, Kurdish migrants, subsequently killed.
The Dunkirk prosecutor also specifies that after these events, two other people “suffered acts of violence with weapons” in Loon-Plage, “while they passed by him” in the car. The suspect was also indicted for “acquiring, possessing, carrying and transporting category B and C weapons”.
“Many gray areas”
Saturday afternoon, shortly after 3 p.m., Paul Dekeister, who runs a road transport company, was shot dead in front of his home in Wormhout by several gunshots. A few minutes later, around 4 p.m., two security agents, fathers in their thirties, were shot dead near the Flandres refinery, in Loon-Plage, located 27 km from Wormhout. The bodies of two other victims, migrants, were later discovered a few kilometers further on, on the Mardyck road.
Less than two hours after the events, a man spontaneously presented himself to the Ghyvelde gendarmerie, 25 km away, declaring that he was the author of the Wormhout homicide, but also of the four others. The suspect, Paul D., a 22-year-old young man, was immediately taken into police custody late Saturday.
Before the investigators, he “spontaneously admitted the facts”, indicated his lawyer, Véronique Planckeel. He is “very calm”, but she is “not sure that this boy really understands the consequences of his actions” nor that he “knows what to answer” to investigators, she explained.
The trail of professional revenge quickly emerged, the alleged shooter having worked for his first victim, Paul Dekeister. “We do not know how the employment contract was terminated,” declared the lawyer, for whom “many gray areas remain” on the motive. Paul D. was also an employee of a subsidiary of Eamus Cork Security (ECS) for which the next two victims, the two security agents, worked, according to the founder of the company, Patrick Guerbette.
The murderer completed “a period of training and professionalization contract” of approximately four months until August 2023, during which he was the target of “no reproach”, added Patrick Guerbette. According to him, he had then “not at all” been in contact with the two agents targeted. The suspect “resigned from his mission before the end of his training, apparently (…) to follow training, I believe, in road transit,” he added.
“No explanation” for the murders of the two migrants
The two security agents patrolled the area in a company vehicle, unarmed but wearing bulletproof vests and accompanied by a dog, said Patrick Guerbette. The body of one of them was found “near the vehicle, outside”, he added. According to the suspect’s lawyer, of the two security agents, “he knew one by sight, it seems, that’s all.”
Finally, she added, there is currently “no explanation” for the murder a few minutes later and five kilometers away of two migrants near a camp. They, aged 20 and 28, were “born in the province of Kurdistan in Iran,” said Dunkirk prosecutor Charlotte Huet on Tuesday.
VideoQuintuple murder near Dunkirk: the terrifying journey of Paul D, the alleged shooter
Several firearms were found in the car of the suspect, unknown to the police services and the judicial authority according to the prosecution, which opened an investigation for “murders (…) accompanied by another crime” and “transport of “weapons (…)”. The suspect’s custody was extended on Monday evening before being lifted on Tuesday. The suspect was immediately presented to an investigating judge and indicted. Paul D. faces life imprisonment.
