Belgian authorities have confirmed that the body of extremist Jürgen Konings, who has been wanted for five weeks, has been found. Authorities had declared him a terrorist for making death threats against government officials and a national virologist for their actions during the Covid pandemic. He had planned to kill 10 people, as he reported in his letters.
The former 46-year-old military man, dubbed the “Belgian Rambo” because of the similarity of his case to that of Sylvester Stallone’s character, was wanted in an 18-hectare forest. Earlier, his car was found, full of weapons and turned into a trap with the possibility of self-explosion when trying to open.
According to initial data, Konings, armed with a cold steel and firearms, committed suicide with a shot. According to his family, as well as in the opinion of a former interior minister, quoted by local media, suicide is unlikely.
The body was found yesterday morning, and last night Konings supporters gathered in front of his house and applauded. Since the search began, far-right sympathizers have repeatedly rallied in support of Konings’ idea that Belgium has a “health dictatorship.”
Shortly after the search began, the Belgian authorities undertook a significant easing of anti-epidemic measures, which until then included evening hours and a ban on gatherings. An inspection was launched, which found that there were data in the Belgian Armed Forces for at least 15 people prone to extreme actions. According to observers quoted in the media, the Konings case confirms that the far right is not organized and no one seems to have come to the rescue of the fugitive.
It remains a mystery when Konings died – his body is in advanced decay, and last week in Belgium the weather was unusually hot. In the first weeks of the search, shots were reported in the area, but it was not established who fired them. It is believed that Konings committed suicide soon after he disappeared.
Hundreds of police and military personnel were involved in the search, and more than half a million euros were spent. It was reported that once again the Belgian security services did not exchange information and in this case, although Konings’ behavior was not secret, the data did not serve to take timely action. Thus, Konings had access to weapons depots as a shooting teacher, from where he exported a large amount of ammunition on the eve of his last actions.
Konings was a military man all his life, serving in missions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Lebanon and Bosnia. He was convinced of the denial of covid vaccines, and in a death note he said he would strike at “the regime and virologists.”
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