Belgian Court Declares 1980s Political Assassination Case Expired After 30 Years

In the absence of sufficient evidence, the federal prosecutor’s office had requested a dismissal, as well as prescription. Following this decision, the indictment chamber confirms one point: the facts are indeed prescribed, after 30 years of investigation, reports Belga. In 2016, this chamber had carried out new investigative duties, including the production of documents from the State Security concerning Abdelkader Belliraj, the main suspect in the assassinations. What next? Status quo.

"Finally, my client will only have part of the truth and never justice. Abdelkader Belliraj assassinated Dr. Wybran with members of the team he had set up to kill Jews and Arabs opposed to the fatwa against writer Salman Rushdie. He was convicted in Morocco for this assassination. His accomplices in Belgium will never be prosecuted," lamented Michèle Hirsch, lawyer for Joseph Wybran’s wife.

"Belliraj was an informant for the Belgian State Security. He had been hired there while he had committed these assassinations to infiltrate terrorist circles," the lawyer argued, recalling that the indictment chamber in Brussels had asked the State Security to communicate the classified and secret documents concerning Belliraj, but it refused. "And today time has passed and the indictment chamber has noted the prescription. The reason of State has triumphed. Mrs. Wybran, the CCOJB, the Université Libre de Bruxelles and the families of the other victims will never know the whole truth in this case," commented the criminal lawyer.

"It is certain that if there had been any charge against my client, we would not have waited for the prescription," commented for his part, Vincent Lurquin, Belliraj’s lawyer. "My client was kidnapped, sequestered and tortured. The prosecutor also stressed this risk that the confessions were made under torture," he added.