Brabant killers

1982

• March 13: Theft of a 10-gauge fowling shotgun at a store in Dinant, Belgium. Two men were seen running away.
• May 10: Theft of an Austin Allegro; 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; while the goods were being loaded into a vehicle, two French police officers came on the scene. Both were shot and seriously wounded.
• 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.^[1]

1983

• January 9: Cab robbery in Brussels; the car was found in Mons, Belgium. The taxi driver was tortured and killed.
• February 11: Armed robbery of a supermarket in Rixensart, Belgium. Less than $18,000 was stolen. Several people were wounded; no one was killed.
• February 22. An Audi 100 with multiple bullet holes (from the February 11th incident) was stolen from a commercial garage where it was being repaired.
• February 25: Armed robbery of a supermarket in Uccle, Belgium. Less than $16,000 was stolen. No one was killed.
• March 3: Armed robbery of a supermarket in Halle, Belgium. Less than $18,000 was stolen. One supermarket-staff member was killed.
• May 7: Armed robbery of a supermarket in Houdeng-Gougnies, Belgium. Less than $22,000 was stolen. No one was killed.
• September 10: Armed robbery of a textile factory in Temse, Belgium. Seven bullet-proof jackets were stolen. One worker was killed and his wife severely wounded.
• 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 liters 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 the 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, abandoning it not far from the garage it had been stolen from, and close to the Delhaize supermarket that would be attacked on September 27, 1985. Investigators believe the repeated propinquity of locations where the gang was active may indicate they lived in the area. Potentially crucial fingerprint 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 was stolen. One customer was killed.
• December 1: Armed robbery of a jeweler in Anderlues, Belgium. Some low-value jewels were stolen. Two people were killed.

1985

• September 27: Armed robbery at the Delhaize supermarket on rue de la Graignette in Braine-l'Alleud. Less than $6,000 was stolen. Three people were killed and two wounded. Between 15–25 minutes later: Armed robbery of the Delhaize supermarket on Brusselsesteenweg in Overijse was raided. Less than $25,000 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.^[1]

• 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. Less than $25,000 was taken; eight people were killed.

During the November 9th incident, gang members (wearing bizarre face paint and disguises) roared at and taunted customers. They shot anyone who looked at them, including children. Witnesses said the shootings were done mainly by the "Killer;" the person justified it as killing witnesses. It appeared, however, that the shootings were gratuitous executions. The robbers did not leave the scene right away after returning to their parked getaway vehicle.

Patrol vehicles from Belgium's then-two police forces arrived before the gang left the Parklaan Delhaize. Most vehicles went to a secondary exit of the parking lot about 100 yards away. The getaway began with the "Giant" walking alongside the getaway car, exchanging shots with a policeman. Police fired more shots as the getaway car sped away. A police van pursued the gang for half a kilometer before stopping the pursuit, losing track of them.

The last sighting of any gang member was November 9. The person was spotted on a forest road, on the ground, apparently seriously injured.

Decades later, forensic examination at the forest-road site found evidence of a weapon being fired there. Investigators concluded one of the gang was executed by his accomplices and buried nearby. The getaway car was later found burned.^[1][2][3]

Official complicity

The last gang robbery (despite patrols checking the supermarket every twenty minutes) led to rumors of them having some kind of inside knowledge and possibly complicity by individual gendarmes in the attacks. Nearby Gendarmerie vehicles (which had an Uzi in a compartment) did not engage or pursue the gang.

The Belgian "stay-behind" network SDRA8 (Gladio) — operating as a secret branch of the Belgian military service — was suggested by some to have links to the gang. Some units of the stay-behind network were made up of members of the Belgian Gendarmerie. One theory was that the communist threat in Western Europe was taken as justifying Operation Gladio being activated. However, the Belgian parliamentary inquiry into Gladio found no substantive evidence that Gladio was involved in any terrorist acts or that criminal groups had infiltrated the stay-behind network.^[6][7]

The Belgian Gendarmerie were abolished in reforms that came as a result of a perceived lack of satisfactory performance in the Brabant killers case, and that of Marc Dutroux.^[2][8]

Westland New Post

The NATO 'Stay Behind' explanation for the Brabant incidents was explored in a 1992 BBC Timewatch series named 'Operation Gladio', directed by Allan Francovich. The program centered on a by-then defunct private Belgian far right anti-communist organization named Westland New Post. The leader, Paul Latinus, said he was working with government agencies along the same lines as Gladio.

The main WNP connection to the Brabant killers was that members — including some Gendarmerie — recalled being ordered in the early eighties to covertly surveil and compile a report on security arrangements at various Belgian supermarkets. Some of the markets were in a large chain that was the main target of the later killings. 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.^{[9][10][11][12][13]}

Michel Libert, the former second-in-command of Westland New Post, has never denied passing on the covert-supermarket-surveillance orders. He has denied having anything more to do with the matter. He said he was not told by Latinus what the purpose was behind the assignments.^{[10][11][12][14][15][16][17]}

In 1983 Libert had been staying with Marcel Barbier, a WNP member, when the latter was arrested for using a weapon in a street fight and became a suspect in a double murder at a synagogue a year earlier. When police then began investigating WNP, Latinus told them that Barbier and another WNP member were behind the synagogue murders, and that Latinus had helped Barbier get rid of the murder weapon as well as other pieces of evidence. Barbier was the only person convicted for these murders; his co-accused, who was acquitted, but later convicted, of a similar double murder of diamond merchants, appeared in a Belgian TV program in 2014, where he alleged WNP was behind the Brabant killings. This claim was based on WNP apparently having compiled information on the premises raided. Libert was arrested as a suspect soon after the program was broadcast, but released without charge after 48 hours.^{[10][11][12][14][15][16][17]}

Other speculation

Various conspiracy theories link the killings to political scandals, suggesting they were done to disguise a targeted assassination. In one version, connecting the killings to illegal gun-running mafias and legitimate businesses. A banker by the name of Léon Finné, who was shot by the gang in Overijse, was supposedly targeted deliberately.

Current lines of inquiry

One suspect was C.B., nicknamed "The Giant". He was a police officer and member of the elite group Diane during and after the crimes. He died on May 14, 2015, before which he allegedly confessed to having committed the crimes to his brother. His brother only revealed the confession two years after the death, in October 2017. There were also a riot gun, other gun, bullets in a basket labelled "Gendarmerie-Politie", indicating it used to belong to the police, found in a canal, probably linked to the Brabant killers.^{[20][21][22][23]} Barring an extension to the statute of limitations, the gang members would no longer be punished for the crimes. The limit was due to run out November 10, 2015.^[24] The period was extended with 10 years in October 2015.^[25]