The federal prosecutor’s workplace has introduced that the investigation into the Gang of Nijvel, one of many biggest mysteries in Belgian historical past, has been closed. This announcement was made this week to the victims and kin of the violent robberies dedicated by the gang. Sadly, the identification of the perpetrators continues to be unknown.
The Gang of Nijvel dedicated a sequence of violent robberies between 1982 and 1985, killing 28 individuals. Regardless of 1000’s of ideas and an intensive investigation, the identification of the perpetrators has by no means been found. Federal prosecutor Ann Fransen introduced throughout a press convention that the investigation has been discontinued: “I’d have most popular to satisfy you in several circumstances as a result of the message we’re bringing you at the moment is just not nice and it’s laborious for us.”
Since February 2018, the investigation has been with the federal prosecutor’s workplace. “No expense or effort has been spared to attain a breakthrough,” says Fransen. Regardless of the efforts, together with greater than 1,800 ideas, virtually 600 DNA samples, 2,700 in contrast fingerprints and 40 exhumed stays, the identification of the gang members stays a thriller.
Response from victims and kin
The victims and kin, who had been knowledgeable prematurely, reacted with disappointment and anger. Ingrid Mulder, who misplaced her sister within the theft of the Delhaize in Aalst on November 9, 1985, informed HLN: “That they only dare to say: ‘We have not discovered something, we’re closing the place.’ So you may kill 28 individuals, maim individuals and kill youngsters? That’s doable in Belgium and there’s nothing we will do about it.”
The file will now be forwarded to the council chamber, the place the general public prosecutor’s workplace will ask to formally shut the investigation. Nonetheless, because of a latest change within the regulation, the file surrounding the Bende van Nijvel can now not expire, which implies that surviving kin and victims can nonetheless request extra investigation. Furthermore, the investigation will be reopened when new, helpful data emerges.
These developments go away a door open for doable future breakthroughs, though the present message is disappointing to many.
