Thousands of fingerprints checked, hundreds of DNA samples compared. In vain. This Friday, June 28, Belgian justice closed the case of the “Brabant killers”, a series of bloody robberies which traumatized the country 40 years ago and will probably remain unexplained forever.
A total of 28 people were killed in this series of robberies of supermarkets and small businesses in central Belgium between 1982 and 1985. The Belgian federal prosecutor’s office, which had been centralising the investigation for six years, had to face the incomprehension of some of the victims’ families, by bringing them together to announce the end of the investigations.
“It’s the burial of the file”
“All possible investigative acts have been carried out (…) Unfortunately we have not been able to bring the truth to the surface,” declared the head of the federal prosecutor’s office, Ann Fransen, during a conference of press. She said she regretted “the new blow” that this announcement represents for families, while emphasizing the need to be “clear and transparent” with them.
“This is the burial of the case, it makes me very sad,” reacted Irena Palsterman, whose father was one of the eight victims of the attack on the Delhaize supermarket in Aalst on November 9, 1985.
The killings took place in two waves. The second, in the fall of 1985, was particularly bloody, randomly striking families with children who had gone shopping. A total of 16 people died on September 27 and November 9, 1985.
The trail of police involvement
One of the most seriously considered avenues was that of an enterprise to destabilize the Belgian State carried out by gendarmes or ex-gendarmes reputed to be close to the extreme right. But this lead has never come to fruition in 40 years, despite regularly relaunched investigations, and new arrests sometimes leading to indictments.
A civil party lawyer, Kristiaan Vandenbussche, denounced this Friday an investigation “sabotaged by the gendarmerie”, certain members of which allegedly sought to protect the perpetrators by leading the investigators astray.
In 2019, a retired ex-police officer was indicted, suspected of knowingly manipulating the investigation by throwing weapons and ammunition believed to have belonged to the killers into a canal at the end of 1986. Two years earlier, in 2017, it was the television testimony of the brother of a former gendarme which triggered new media excitement around the case.
This man claimed to have received confidences from his brother shortly before his death who assured him that he was the “giant” of the gang of killers, with the sketch that had become famous. Finally, the federal prosecutor’s office, which took over the management of the investigations in 2018, had to note that no serious lead could lead to the perpetrators.
Nearly 3,000 fingerprints on file
In recent years, about ten police officers were still mobilized on this instruction. They checked “1,815 pieces of information, both old and new”, processed 2,748 fingerprints, compared 593 new DNA samples to those already in the file. “More than 40 bodies were exhumed for research purposes,” added Ann Fransen.
The case is all the more mysterious as the attackers sowed death by collecting derisory amounts during their robberies: “28 deaths for seven million Belgian francs in loot” (around 170,000 euros)recalled the RTBF channel.
A hearing known as the “procedural settlement” hearing is to be held shortly at the Brussels court before the formal decision of a dismissal of the case. The civil parties will still have the possibility on this occasion to request new investigative acts. The facts remain imprescriptible, according to Belgian law.
