The Brabant Killers - Belgium In The Cross Hairs

Between 1982 and 1985, a gang of villains terrorised Belgium, killing 28 people and injuring many more. Richard Luck recalls the crime wave and sifts through the potential suspects...

A version of this article appeared in The New European.

If you've been to Brussels, you've been to Brabant. The province at the very heart of Belgium was once ruled by Napoleon Bonaparte. But between 1982 and 1985, another malevolent force held the region in thrall. Those responsible for these reign of terror are variously known as the Nijvel Gang and les Tueurs Fous du Brabant Wallon. We will refer to them as the Brabant Killers.

On March 13th 1982, two men were seen fleeing a shop with a stolen shotgun. This relatively innocuous theft marked the beginning of the Brabant Killers' crime spree. Less than two months later on May 10th, the same men carjacked an Austin Allegro and stole a Volkswagen Santana from a car showroom. Fast forward to August 14th, and the gang crossed the border to hold up a grocery store in Maubeurg, France. In the process of loading their spoils - principally food and wine - into their getaway car, the criminals were confronted by two police officers. In the ensuing gun fight, both lawmen were seriously injured. More blood would be spilt on September 30th when the gang robbed a Belgian weapons dealer at gunpoint. Once again, the police arrived on the scene and were greeted with volley after volley of gunfire. By the time the armed robbers sped away - with 15 freshly-looted firearms - three policemen had been shot, one of whom would die before he could be taken to hospital. The gang had yet more blood on their hands after burgling a restaurant on December 23rd, in the process of which they tortured the establishment's caretaker to death.

As horrific as the Brabant Killers' 1982 escapades were, they were as nothing compared to the havoc they'd reek the following years. Between January 9th and December 1st, the gang carried out 13 robberies. The body count would also spiral out of control. From killing a taxi driver at the beginning of the year, the criminals shot dead a supermarket worker in the spring, then killed a police officer and a married couple who had the misfortune to be present when the gang held up a gas station. Further slayings in October, November and December meant that by the time 1984 came along, the Brabant Killers were responsible for the deaths of 10 people, including two policemen.

And then they dropped out of sight. The Brabant Killers disappeared from the radar for more than 18 months. Just because they were laying low didn't stop people from talking about them. On the contrary, the press and the general public went into speculation overdrive. Where the killers anarchists? Were they a Red Army cell or a far right movement? Might they even be Gendarmes, a rogue element of the police force perhaps? Answering these questions was made difficult by two things, the first being that the composition of the gang was very hard to pin down. As the number of men involved differed from raid to raid so the gang's penchant for disguises and face paint made them tricky to identity. And while three of the killers had acquired nicknames, the 6'4'' 'Giant', the homicidal 'Killer' and the 'Old Man' - the gang's getaway driver - remained distinctly shadowy figures, this being the era before CCTV and DNA profiling.

Getting a bead on the Brabant Killers was also complicated by their modus operandi. By December 1983, the gang's spoils comprised 16 firearms, five cars, a few pieces of jewellery, countless bottles of wine, 20 kilos of tea and coffee, and 10 litres of cooking oil. They had also stolen the equivalent of $111,111, which sounds a lot until you realise this total represented the proceeds from five separate robberies. Furthermore, the Killers never stole all the money on the premises, often leaving cash in the tills and the safes untouched. Heck, on some occasions, such as the Ohain restaurant robbery of October 20th, they didn't steal anything; the murder of the owner apparently being 'reward' enough.

A gang whose numbers fluctuate and who seem more content with chaos than acquiring goods and cash, the Brabant Killers were unlike most any criminal outfit before or since. That, by the autumn of 1985, they seemed to have ceased operations was a blessed relief to a country where a simple trip to the supermarket had become the very thing that could get you killed. Then came September 27th and all hell broke loose. In holding up a Delhaize supermarket in Braine-l'Alleud, the criminals helped themselves to $6,000 and claimed three more lives. Then, just minutes later, they robbed a similar establishment in Overijse stealing $25,000, killing five more people in the process. If there was any doubt that murder was the gang's primary interest, this horrific double event removed it completely. After September 27th, supermarkets the length and breadth of Belgium employed armed guards.

And still the Killers weren't perturbed. Come November 9th, it was a Delhaize branch in Aalst that fell victim to the gang. Bursting into the store, the robbers - sporting striking face paint - set about the customers, shooting anyone who dared look at them, regardless of their age or gender. With the 'Killer' at the heart of the carnage, the Nijvel thugs left a further eight people dead that fateful day. Freeing the scene with some $25,000, the marauders were in no hurry to get away. Instead, they waited until the police turned up then opened fire on them. After an exchange of gunshots and a brief car chase, the Brabant Killers sped off through the countryside and into crime history.

Their reign of terror finally at an end, the Brabant Killers became the Belgian equivalent of Jack The Ripper. Fascination over there whereabouts was stoked by eye witnesses who claimed to have seen the gang's apparent leader 'The Giant' nursing a fatal wound on a forest lane way. The discovery of the torched getaway car further fuelled the mystery surrounding the gang. Had, as investigators believed, the Killers executed one of their own number and buried him in the woods? Or did they also successfully escape?

In seeking to identify the gang members, the authorities first turned their attention to known criminals. The man responsible for kidnapping Belgian Prime Minister Paul Vanden Boeyants, Patrick Haemers was certainly tall enough to pass for 'The Giant'. And since former Gendarme Madani Bouhouche had two murders to his name, what price him being 'The Killer'? Neither man's case was ever proven although the conspiracy theorists had a field day with the fact that both Haemers and Boucouche died in mysterious circumstances; the first hung himself in his prison cell from a thigh-high radiator while the latter was killed in a bizarre gardening accident.

Speaking of conspiracies, the BBC's Timewatch series made a convincing argument for the Brabant Killers being part of Operation Gladio, a project sponsored by NATO and the CIA that fostered relations with radical groups in the hope that, should Russia sweep through Western Europe, this 'stay-behind' army could ambush the invaders. Both the Belgian 'stay-behind' network SDRA8 and the far-right political movement Westland New Post were sited in the documentary, with the leaders of the latter group neither confirming or denying that they had been working with government agencies and the police force.

It's now 32 years since the Nijvel Gang plunged Belgium into unspeakable terror. Since that time, the Gendarmerie has been dismantled, its failure to bring the Brabant Killers to justice being the last act of incompetence by an organisation that also took eons to convict the paedophile Marc Dutroux. The Killers' case, however, remains open and in 2017, it took another turn. Belgian TV broadcaster TVM interviewed a man who claimed that his brother, an ex-policeman, had confessed on his deathbed that he was 'The Giant'.

"In the beginning I was in denial because I really struggled with it, but today I can say formally that this is my brother," explained the man who understandably wished to remain anonymous. As reported by the BBC, the suspect Christiaan Bonkoffsky had been "dismissed from an elite police commando unit called the Diana Group in 1981 following the accidental discharge of his gun." Angry at being fired, Bonkoffsky turned to drink. Whether he also turned to violence is still to be confirmed.

It was also in 2017 that a memorial was erected to those slain by the Brabant Killers during their final raid. In all 28 people died at the gang's hands, with a further 40 sustaining injuries. Those still living with the ramifications of the Killers' actions include David Van De Steen who was just nine when his parents were shot to death in front of his eyes in November 1989. "They were barbarians that shot children in the face," Mr Van De Steen told an interviewer in 2015. "They caused carnage. Even today I can see the scars on my leg." 

David Van De Steen is determined that the Brabant Killers be brought to justice. For all the conspiratorial excitement that surrounds the case, this tragedy isn't a puzzle waiting to be solved; it's a horrific crime that demands a resolution that brings at least some comfort to those who lost loved ones. For this reason, one hopes that the passing of time and the silence of guilty men no longer afford the Brabant Killers the freedom they should've long since been denied.