After the fatal shooting in his municipality, most likely a settlement in the drug environment, the mayor of Sint-Gillis mainly resounds with helplessness. “My police officers are constantly on site. They make arrests every day,” says Jean Spinette (PS). “But if we arrest one dealer, another is immediately ready. Why? There is a feeling of impunity. To dismantle the networks, financial investigations are necessary and the money flows must be mapped. But the public prosecutor’s offices and courts are overloaded, they can no longer cope.”
The same feeling exists among Brussels Prime Minister Rudi Vervoort (PS). “The drug gangs in Brussels are fighting for territory, and there must be a corresponding response. But I do not have the operational authority to simply send extra police officers there. The federal level can do that,” Vervoort said during a meeting with journalists on Wednesday afternoon. “As Brussels Prime Minister, I only have the authority to coordinate the Region’s security policy. This means that I could call the police, the judiciary and the mayors for a meeting, but I cannot legally direct them.”
Drug violence in the capital is flaring up again. In the Brussels municipality of Sint-Gillis, a man was shot dead early on Wednesday morning in the area of Place Jacques Franck, near Hallepoort Park. A few hours earlier, shots had already been fired in the nearby Zuidlaan. There were no injuries. Shots had already been fired at the same Jacques Franckplein on Tuesday afternoon, with a weapon of war. And on Sunday evening there was also a shooting, about 400 meters away, in the Marolles district.
‘Drive-in’ for drugs
Although the investigation is still ongoing, everything points to settlements in the drug environment. The area around Hallepoort Park has been known in the capital for years as a ‘drive-in’ for the sale of drugs. On Wednesday afternoon, a suspect was arrested who was present at the shooting in Zuidlaan. The prosecutor’s office made no further comment about his possible involvement.
It is not only Saint-Gilles that is suffering from drug violence. Recently, the social housing company Anderlechtse Haard sent an urgent letter to Vervoort (PS) and federal Minister of the Interior Annelies Verlinden (CD&V). It stated that the Peterbos social housing estate in the municipality was again taken over by drug gangs, who set up roadblocks there and even searched visitors. In December there was another riot in Guldenvlieslaan, in Brussels, in which five people were injured. Three months earlier, a 31-year-old man was shot dead on the street in Anderlecht with seventeen bullets from a Kalashnikov.
Behind this drug violence are international networks, mainly players from Albania, Marseille and Morocco. “This is not a Brussels problem, not a Belgian problem, but a global problem,” Paul Van Tigchelt (Open VLD), Minister of Justice, told VRT NWS on Wednesday. According to the liberal, the solutions therefore lie at an international level. According to him, the extradition of drug criminals from countries such as Morocco and Dubai should go much more smoothly. “At the same time, we have never sent as many police onto the site as we did today,” he said.
“Wave of Weapons”
Nevertheless, it is clear that Brussels should not count on too much additional help from the federal level after the new shootings. Despite the pleas of Spinette and Vervoort, Verlinden’s cabinet only promised that “several meetings” will be convened on Thursday “with different actors”, about which the minister will be “briefed afterwards”.
On Wednesday, in the corridors of various federal cabinets, the ball was even thrown back at Brussels politicians, who were accused of “immediately asking for federal help with every problem, without putting things in order themselves.”
The Flemish Peace Institute now warns that allowing the problem to fester could have major consequences. “We need to gain more insight into which weapons are circulating,” says director Nils Duquet. “If we don’t take action, a wave of weapons will come our way.”
