Brabant killers

• December 31: Burglary at a Gendarmerie barracks in Etterbeek. Theft of automatic weapons, ammunition, and a car. Some of these items were later allegedly recovered in a garage belonging to Madani Bouhouche.

• March 13: Theft of a 10-gauge fowling shotgun from a store in Dinant, Belgium. Two men were seen running away.
• May 10: Theft at gunpoint of an Austin Allegro. One of two such instances in which the Killer was seen without a mask. He spoke French, apparently as a first language and with the inflection of an educated man. The car was dumped almost immediately. Theft of a Volkswagen Santana from a car showroom.
• August 14: Armed robbery of a grocery store in Maubeuge, France. Food and wine were stolen. Two French police officers were shot and seriously wounded when they arrived on the scene while the goods were being loaded into a vehicle.
• September 30: Armed robbery of a weapons dealer in Wavre, Belgium. Fifteen firearms were stolen, including sub-machine guns. A policeman was killed at the scene; two others were shot and seriously wounded later.
• December 23: Armed robbery of a restaurant in Beersel, Belgium. Coffee and wine were stolen. The caretaker was tortured and killed.[9]

• January 9: Robbery and murder of a taxi driver in Brussels, Belgium. The car was later found in Mons, Belgium.
• January 28: Theft of a Peugeot at gunpoint.
• February 11: Armed robbery of a supermarket in Rixensart, Belgium. Less than $18,000 (equivalent to $39,558 in 2020) was stolen. Several people were wounded. No one was killed.
• February 22: An Audi 100 with bullet holes from the February 11 incident was stolen from a commercial garage where it was being repaired, but quickly abandoned.
• February 25: Armed robbery of a supermarket in Uccle, Belgium. Less than $16,000 (equivalent to $35,162 in 2020) was stolen. No one was killed.
• March 3: Armed robbery and murder at a supermarket in Halle, Belgium. Less than $18,000 (equivalent to $39,558 in 2020) was stolen. One supermarket-staff member was killed.
• May 7: Armed robbery of a supermarket in Houdeng-Gougnies, Belgium. Less than $22,000 (equivalent to $48,348 in 2020) was stolen. No one was killed.
• September 10: Armed robbery and murder at a textile factory in Temse, Belgium. Seven bullet-proof jackets were stolen. A worker was killed and his wife severely wounded. The firm had recently begun manufacturing the jackets (for the police) which was not widely known.
• September 17: A couple were murdered in the early hours after stopping their Mercedes at a 24-hour self-service gas station beside a store that the gang was burgling. Despite the alarm going off, the gang took the time to load twenty kilos of tea and coffee and 10 litres of cooking oil. Two gendarmes responding to the alarm were shot as they arrived on the scene; one was killed, the other seriously wounded. The gang escaped in a Saab turbo stolen on February 22 and the murdered couple's Mercedes. After shooting up a police car that began following them, the gang used a little-known minor road to get away in the Saab; after unsuccessful attempts to destroy the car by shooting the petrol tank, they left it near to the garage from which the Audi had been stolen (also linked to the Volkswagen hijacked in 1982, and close to the Delhaize supermarket that would be attacked on September 27, 1985). Investigators believe that the repeated propinquity may indicate that some members lived in the area. Potentially crucial evidence collected from the Saab 'disappeared'.
• October 2: Armed robbery of a restaurant in Ohain, Belgium. Nothing was stolen. The owner was killed.
• October 7: Armed robbery of a supermarket in Beersel, Belgium. Less than $35,000 (equivalent to $76,918 in 2020) was stolen. One customer was killed.
• December 1: Armed robbery of a shop in Anderlues and murder of the couple who owned it. About 3,000 Euros of jewelry was stolen. The owner's wife was instantly killed without warning as the gang entered. The owner attempted to defend himself with a pistol, but was shot dead. The gang destroyed a surveillance camera recording before leaving. The stolen Volkswagen used had fake license plates copied from a legitimately owned Volkswagen of the same model that was linked to the garage where the Audi was taken, and where the new Volkswagen taken at gunpoint in 1982 was bought.

• September 27: Armed robbery at the Delhaize supermarket on rue de la Graignette in Braine-l'Alleud. Less than $6,000 (equivalent to $11,824 in 2020) was stolen. Three people were killed and two wounded. Between 15 and 25 minutes later, there was an armed robbery of the Delhaize supermarket on Brusselsesteenweg in Overijse. Less than $25,000 (equivalent to $49,268 in 2020) was stolen. Five people were killed and one wounded.

As a result of these robberies, security was increased at many stores in the region — including armed guards.[9]

• November 9, around 7:30 p.m.: Armed robbery at the Delhaize supermarket on the Parklaan in Aalst. This market was outside the area the gang usually operated in. They arrived while an armed patrol that checked the supermarket was still present. A family of four encountered the perpetrators in the parking lot after they left the shop and the mother, father, and daughter were killed apparently without motive. The surviving boy from the family ran back into the shop where he was singled out and shot at point blank range; he was very badly wounded in the hip. Less than $25,000 was taken, and eight people were killed with several others seriously injured. Gang members (wearing bizarre face paint and disguises) roared at and taunted customers. They also were reportedly laughing and smiling during the gratuitous shootings, which were done by the "Killer". The robbers did not leave the scene right away after returning to their parked getaway vehicle. The patrol vehicle from Belgium's Rijkswacht/Gendarmerie backed some distance away when shooting started; the municipal police arrived, although many of their cars had refused to start, but mainly remained at an exit of the parking lot that was well away from the gang. The getaway began with the "Giant" walking alongside the getaway car. A policeman fired his revolver at the gang's VW, which went through an unblocked exit and sped away. Rijkswacht/Gendarmerie vehicles stayed put, but a police van pursued the gang for a few kilometers.

In November 1986, the discovery in a canal of various items and weapons taken or used in the gang's crimes provided important evidence. A long running dispute erupted over the find, amid assertions that the location was checked in 1985; therefore the weapons could not have been there from before that time and a second search must have been done with guilty knowledge. In 2019, the now-retired officers responsible for ordering the 1986 search were officially questioned on suspicion of manipulating the investigation,[8] but they protested that original search of the canal was not an underwater inspection by frogmen, as done in 1986. A Volkswagen Golf car — similar to that used in the getaway — had been found burned out in 1985 in woods relatively close by to the canal, however it was said the condition of the items meant they could not have been immersed since that time.[9][10][11]

Certain events surrounding the robbery of the Delhaize supermarket in Aalst on 9 November 1985 served to further strengthen media-fuelled rumours of a connection between the gang and elements of the Belgian military and the Belgian Gendarmerie in particular. For example, the supermarket was hit despite patrols passing it every twenty minutes and gendarmes close to the scene did not engage or pursue the robbers. Although no such connection has been officially proven, the lack of satisfactory performance in the Brabant killers case was among the reasons for the subsequent abolishing of the Belgian Gendarmerie.[10][14]

A connection to the clandestine stay-behind network S.D.R.A VIII (Operation Gladio) has also been suggested. However, an official parliamentary inquiry found no substantive evidence that the network was involved in any terrorist acts or that criminal groups had infiltrated it.[15][16]

A supposed connection between the Brabant killers, Gladio, and the by-then defunct Belgian far-right organisation Westland New Post led by Paul Latinus is mentioned in the 1992 BBC Timewatch documentary series Operation Gladio, directed by Allan Francovich, in which it is suggested that Latinus said that his organisation was sanctioned by the Belgian government.

In March 1981, Paul Latinus and members of Front de la Jeunesse founded Westland New Post, a paramilitary far-right group that was investigated after a 1980 incident in which a member shot at a group of North Africans, causing one death and a national outcry. The killer was with a firearms enthusiast who was a friend of Madani Bouhouche, and decades later let him stay in a French property after Bouhouche was released on licence from a life sentence for two murders. The milieu of WNP included a former member (now deceased) of the French terrorist group OAS, and several others from the Front de la Jeunesse who conducted paramilitary firearms training in some of the forested areas that were later used by the Brabant killers. The WNP was a secret organisation. Speculation about a connection to the Brabant killers increased after former WNP members — including the only Gendarmerie — recalled being ordered to covertly surveil and compile a report on security arrangements at Belgian supermarkets of a large chain that was targeted by the killers. WNP had a genuine intelligence operative advising on covert techniques; NATO behind-the-lines units are known to have used the planning of robberies as a training exercise.[17][18][19][20][21][22] Michel Libert, the former second-in-command of Westland New Post, admitted passing on Latinus's orders to gather detailed information on supermarkets with a view to robberies, but denied knowing of any purpose to the assignments beyond developing clandestine skills.[18][19][21][23]

Marcel Barbier, an enforcer-type WNP member who lived with Libert, was arrested in August 1983 after a shooting, and became suspected in a double murder at a synagogue a year earlier. Latinus went to police and informed them that Barbier and another WNP member had committed the synagogue murders, and that he (Latinus) had helped Barbier get rid of the murder weapon. This caused dissension within the WNP as Latinus was seen as having betrayed a member of the organisation. Also in 1983 several members of WNP who were in Front de la Jeunesse (Belgium) were convicted of organising it as an illegal militia, and given terms in prison. Leading WNP members were also arrested for unauthorised possession of low-level classified NATO documents. Latinus committed suicide in April 1984, and his followers formed rival cliques. Some theories have connected these facts to the inactivity of the Brabant Killers gang between December 1983 and September 1985, and them having a seemingly intensified grudge against society during the supermarket massacres of 27 September and 9 November 1985.[18][19][20][21][22]

Barbier was convicted for the synagogue murders. His co-accused, WNP member Eric Lamers, was acquitted of murder but received 5 years for other offences, and in 1991 was convicted of a separate double murder. Lammers fled the country after being accused of a sexual exposure against a child and accessing images of child sex abuse. After he was brought back from Serbia he appeared in a 2014 Belgian TV program in which he accused WNP leaders of being behind the Brabant killings, based on WNP reconnaissance on the supermarket chain whose premises were subjected to the murderous attacks of 1985. Libert was arrested as a suspect soon after the program was broadcast, but released without charge after 48 hours. In 2018 a former subordinate of Libert publicly accused him of being the 'Giant', although without any official reaction. Libert went on television to yet again deny the allegations, and said the accuser had mental health difficulties.[18][19][21][23][24][22][25]

Various conspiracy theories link the killings to political scandals, illegal gun-running mafias, and legitimate businesses, suggesting they were done to disguise targeted assassinations. It has been suggested that one of the supposed victims of these assassinations was the banker Léon Finné, who was shot by the gang during the robbery of the Delhaize supermarket in Overijse on 27 September 1985.

Most suspects date back to the beginning of the investigation, and have been repeatedly questioned over the years. The latest was Christiaan Bonkoffsky, ex-Gendarmerie unit Group Diane, who before his alcohol-related 2015 death made a confession to being the so-called Giant. A riot gun and ammunition basket labelled "Gendarmerie-Politie", were apparently dumped by the Brabant killers (possibly after having been stolen by them). Bonkoffsky had already been scrutinised as a potential suspect in 2000. Investigators utilising forensic DNA and fingerprints have definitely ruled him out as the Giant.[30][31][32][33]

In June 2020 Belgian detectives appealed for information on the identity of man in a photograph sent to police in 1986. They reissued a photo of a man holding a SPAS-12 in a forest. The photo was reissued on the orders of a judge. They also appealed for information on the identity of a man with a 3.5 cm wine stain birthmark on the nape of his neck who took part in one of the gang's raids on a Delhaize supermarket in Beersel on the southern outskirts of Brussels in October 1983.[34]

A special extension to the statute of limitations on the case runs out in 2025, by which time the core members of the gang would be in their mid seventies at least, if still alive.[35][36][34]