Case closed – still cold – in Belgium’s biggest murder mystery

BRUSSELS - It is a murder mystery that gripped Belgium for decades and now, with the closure of the file on June 28, it will likely remain a cold case forever.

Known as the Mad Killers of Brabant, a gang went on a murderous rampage between 1982 and 1985, killing 28 people including children in a series of supermarket robberies.

Outlandish theories have been offered to explain who was behind what local media called Belgium’s “biggest criminal mystery” of the last century. One seriously considered thesis was that it was a bid to destabilise the Belgian state by current or former law enforcement officers close to the far right.

Yet the case was never cracked.

No one has ever been convicted despite multiple overlapping investigations, countless fingerprint and DNA searches, dozens of exhumations and even arrests leading to charges. On June 28, prosecutors finally gathered together the families of victims – still living without answers many years on – to let them know the case was being closed for good.

“All possible investigative actions have been carried out,” Ms Ann Fransen, head of the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office, which took over the probe’s various strands six years ago, told reporters in Brussels. “Unfortunately we have not been able to bring the truth to the surface,” she said.

‘Blow’ to families

“This means the case is now buried, and it makes me very sad,” said Ms Irena Palsterman, whose father was one of eight victims of a supermarket attack on Nov 9, 1985.

Lawyer Kristiaan Vandenbussche, who was present then, blamed a cover-up for the dead end – accusing rogue law enforcement officers of “sabotaging” the investigation to protect the culprits.

After the initial leads had gone cold, prosecutors picked up the case again in 2018 in the wake of a television interview by a suspect’s relative.

The following year, charges were brought against a retired police officer suspected of hobbling the investigation back in 1986 by throwing guns and ammunition into a canal. But he was never convicted, and despite the efforts of a dozen police officers, prosecutors were eventually forced to admit they had made no serious progress.

It was not from a lack of trying, Ms Fransen said.

In all, police checked “1,815 pieces of information, both old and new”, looked at 2,748 sets of fingerprints and compared 593 DNA samples with the ones in the case file.

They exhumed “more than 40 bodies for research purposes”, Ms Fransen said.

The mystery was all the greater since the relatively small sums involved – a total loot of seven million Belgian francs, or around €175,000 – suggest money was not the motive for killing 28 people.

Ms Fransen conceded that closing the case would be a “blow” for the victims’ families, but said she felt it necessary to be “clear and transparent” with them.

The case will officially be closed after a procedural hearing to be held soon in Brussels – at which the families would have one more chance to request new avenues for investigation.

Under Belgian law, there is no statute of limitations on the crimes involved. AFP