Forty-eight hours after the quintuple murder that occurred on Saturday in the vicinity of Dunkirk, the trail of professional revenge is emerging, the alleged shooter having worked for his first victim as well as within the company where the next two worked.
The 22-year-old suspect, who went to the gendarmerie in Ghyvelde (North), a small town on the Belgian border, on Saturday, had resentment towards his first victim, Paul Dekeister, who was his former employer, said the The suspect's lawyer, Véronique Planckeel.
This 29-year-old man, who managed a road transport company, was killed around 3:15 p.m. on Saturday in Wormhout in front of his home by several gunshots.
“We do not know how the employment contract was terminated,” the lawyer told AFP, for whom “many gray areas remain” on the motive.
According to a source close to the matter, revenge after a professional dispute is one of the preferred avenues.
“Not sure this boy understands”
Me Planckeel emphasizes that his client, in police custody since Saturday, “spontaneously recognized the facts and is very calm, very calm”. However, she is “not sure that this boy really understands the consequences of his actions” nor that he “knows what to answer himself” to the investigators.
The alleged killer was also an employee of the company Eamus Cork Security (ECS) for which his next two victims, two security agents, worked, Patrick Guerbette, founder of ECS, indicated during a press briefing.
He completed “a period of training and professionalization contract (…) more than a year and a half ago” 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.
These two fathers in their thirties, Marc and Aurélien, were killed around 4 p.m. in the port area of Loon-Plage, on the outskirts of Dunkirk. They were on a surveillance mission aboard a company vehicle, added Bruno Willems, CEO of ECS, during the press briefing.
For Patrick Guerbette, “anyone who would have been there, at that moment on the road, could have been a victim. » According to the suspect's lawyer, of the two security agents, “he knew one by sight, it seems, that's all”.
“Fear, stress and insecurity”
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.
These “could be of Iranian nationality (…) aged 19 and 30,” Dunkirk prosecutor Charlotte Huet said in a press release on Sunday.
The source close to the case reports that they were targeted by chance.
“Many people” in the camp “have asked us for protection, accommodation,” said Célestin Pichaud, coordinator of the Utopia 56 association. “Fear, stress and precariousness are at their peak,” he said. -he alerted.
The suspect “is unknown to the police services and the judicial authority” and “several firearms were found in his car,” Charlotte Huet said on Sunday.
The investigation was opened for “murders preceded, accompanied or followed by another crime” and “acquisition, possession, carrying and transport of category A and B weapons”, acts punishable by life imprisonment.
This police custody can last “up to 96 hours, that is to say until Wednesday”, specified the prosecutor in her press release.
