On October 11, 2022, in the middle of the night, a Mercedes car caught fire on Rue de Louvain in Verviers, a clearly arson fire. The owner immediately indicated as a possible suspect a contractor from Liège who had (poorly) done some tiling work, and with whom he was in dispute for an amount of 5,000 euros.
The ensuing investigation allows, thanks to a surveillance camera, to quickly identify three perpetrators, two brothers Flavio and Sandro, as well as Lorenzo. Faced with this clear evidence, they confessed, and the two brothers said that they had been contacted by what they believed to be an Albanian to set fire to a car, of which he showed the photo and gave the address, in exchange for a sum of money. of money remained undetermined. And all this happens in Ans in a yellow BMW car, a fairly rare model in everyday life.
The one who would be the sponsor is also identified as a certain Georghe.
A yellow car in his cell phone
These four men were therefore prosecuted for arson before the criminal court. Where the two brothers were absent. So the other two remained. Including Lorenzo, the third author, and Georghe, presumed to be the sponsor. Lorenzo had blandly admitted that he had been contacted by his friend Flavio to go set fire to a car, without knowing anything about the reasons for this action. He didn’t say no, attracted by the money, saying he received 250 euros for it.
As for the suspected sponsor, Gheorge, he denied having the slightest responsibility in this affair. “First of all, I am Romanian, and not Albanian. And I never had a yellow BMW.” How then can we explain that we found a photo of this car in his phone? “It was my son who took it, a lot of people in Liège photographed it because it’s an unusual car” Yes, but we also found a photo of the Mercedes taken 15 days before the fire. “It was my partner who worked in the area who took it, to make sure he was still living there as I prepared to sue him.”
More than sufficient clues
A version that Ms. Wéry, public prosecutor, had put through the mill. For her, the suspicion of the victim, the statements of the perpetrators of the fire, the photos in her mobile phone, the dispute between her and the victim, working under the table with undeclared people are already sufficient clues to establish her guilt. There is also his identification on a panel of photos by one of the brothers, and this cryptic message commenting on the arson of trucks in a Liège company: “When you don’t pay your bills, you shouldn’t be surprised”. She therefore demanded 2 years in prison for each.
She obtained satisfaction for the two brothers who received 2 years in prison, one with probation, Lorenzo benefiting from a work sentence of 180 hours or 18 months in prison. As for Georghe, accused of being the instigator, he was acquitted, the court considering that his guilt was not sufficiently established.
