A grim and puzzling story...still a mystery 30 years later :

Brabant Killers

Sad that nothing was found, they should be hanging in the town square, no matter their current age.

This:

In 2015, all these crimes will expire and no judicial measures against the gang will be possible.[4] The crimes would have expired in the year 2000, but the Belgian Parliament passed two special acts to extend the investigation.

In all North American jurisdictions that I know of there's no statute of limitations for murder and it surprises me that Belgian law would be different in that regard.

IMO there's no moral reason to have felonious crimes expire when it involves loss of life. If they were caught at 99 years old and had a day to live I'd still have them fried in the chair.

I agree with you, Peally.
It seems that in France and Belgium there is a 30-year statute of limitations.

In this story 34 yrs later....
a man presented himself to the police to admit that he and a cousin had killed a shopkeeper 34 years before during a robbery. The police didn't press charges because of the 30-yr statute of limitations.

I don't believe in the death penalty, but I find it shocking that a murderer can lay low for 30 years and get off scot-free!

Ah, De bende van Nijvel.
Remember them like it was yesterday.
After their last hold up/killings we even had paratroopers on the roofs of a lot of big super markets.
They disappeared into thin air, lots of theories and think work about who they were and what were their motives. Clearly not for the money.
I doubt it if we ever know the truth about that gang, I doubt it very much!

I'm not opposed to the death penalty, but because of that I can understand why there would be a statute of limitations. I sense that anyone would if there is to be a presumption of innocence. The reason isn't because people should get away with it, the reason is that witnesses have to be secured, memories have to be jogged, evidence has a tendency to spoilage after a very short time, let alone after years or decades.

And then you find the severed shrunken heads in a fridge 60 years later. It depends on what evidence is available, an arbitrary "if 30 years pass you get away with anything" law is, well, as stupid as the people that thought it up.

But if it were just applied selectively, or only in cases you think it should be applied in, then it's not the rule of law. That would be something else. That's certainly not a presumption of innocence, that's more like I like this guy or I don't.

In my experience, people often want to pronounce a verdict without due process. Human nature- they react, they already presume guilt or not based on their own biases.

But like it or not, that's what a statute of limitations is for- it's designed to protect people against things like 30 year old witness testimony or whatever the state comes up with. You can test yourself even how bad your memory was minute by minute of what you did last week just to see what this can do.

The idea is not a perfect legal system- the idea is that it's better to let some guilty go free than convict some who are innocent as a better compromise.

Who says after 30 years you need shaky witness testimony when you find the dismembered body parts in the guy's apartment? When it comes to crime sometimes evidence is so obvious it's comical.

It's a poor compromise, if there's video of some Soviet officer shooting civilians in a mass grave according to that rule you're good to go because it was 30 years ago, no big deal right? If the evidence is actually shaky there needs to be a trial and a jury needs to decide that for itself, not some twit in a suit that randomly picked "30" as a get out of responsibility free card.

A statute of limitations on cases involving mass murder is the stupidest thing I've read this week, which is sad considering I read some YouTube comments today. It's hardly justifiable as an end all be all law, in fact rather insulting to the victims that their losses don't matter to the judicial system after a random number of years. Listening to people's fuzzy memories isn't the only evidence available to every single investigation; this is flat out lazy, irresponsible, and immoral lawmaking.

Yeah, it doesn't just work that way, I'm afraid. So how did the cops get the head, did it just show up at the police station and just start talking? Or did they get a tip from someone and open an investigation? They still have to open up the investigation and put the story together, interview people. Otherwise all they have is a head- one that the suspect can conceivably argue was planted or manufactured by the state or it was a frame job by the real perpetrator.


Look, I'm not saying that I like the idea of the guilty go free. But if you're going to worry about that, there's so much else to after in the legal system as well. What about the habit of prosecutors overcharging in the hopes that the suspect pleads out to lesser charges. Is that justice? What about wealthier suspects having the advantage of better representation? What about the process of jury selection? What about an adversarial system that is not necessarily designed to seek the truth but designed to get the 'correct' verdict- motions to suppress or introduce evidence and testimony- I mean, the list goes on and on- I don't even believe in the term 'justice system,' because that is very abstract. We have a legal system. That's what is really meant.

As my Belgian wife has just said, you are better off killing someone than trying to evade taxes here as that carries a stiffer penalty

Killing people is often better than a lot of things. Drug possession is often charged according to minimum sentencing laws- there are no affirmative defenses for drug possession as there are with killing people. As such there are lots of people serving lengthy drug related sentences.

If I kill someone, I can say, "Yes, but..." and then argue all kinds of defenses to get off or get a reduced sentence- it was an accident, it was self defense, I was momentarily out of me marbles, and so on.

The best one!!!

Strangely enough I recently read a book about this gang and the killings. Weird, yet interesting reading.

Clandestine operation ? Gladio.