Brussels Trial Begins for 2020 Gang-Related Murder of 23-Year-Old Man

At Monday’s hearing, Redwan Mettioui, lawyer for Soufiane Benali’s family, pleaded the guilt of Mohamed-Amine Dardour, Youssef Jeddi and Younes Bakkali, all three accused of being the perpetrators or co-perpetrators of the 23-year-old’s murder in Forest on July 5, 2020, reports La Dernière Heure. "The file is clear, limpid. It allows you to judge them guilty beyond any reasonable doubt." The lawyer did not fail to express his feelings. "War scenes like that, where they shoot in the middle of the street with a submachine gun, that had never been seen in Brussels. And to find that the two main suspects, Mohamed-Amine Dardour and Youssef Jeddi, were such young individuals, I had a hard time believing it," he confided.

Mettioui is surprised by the behavior of Dardour and Jeddi: "But then to see that Dardour escaped by breaking his electronic bracelet, that Jeddi joined him in Spain in total violation of his release conditions and that they resumed a drug trafficking there and again equipped themselves with weapons... That stunned me."

Soufiane Benali was shot dead by two bullets in the night of July 4 to 5, 2020 in his neighborhood, rue Orban, in Forest. Two of his friends aged 17 and 19 escaped, seriously injured. The police investigations revealed that Dardour, who was the head of a criminal association active in the sale of cannabis and cocaine since 2018, one of whose "sales outlets" was the Orban district, would have decided to attack Soufiane because he was competing with him. For lawyer Isa Gultaslar, the motive for the crime is elsewhere. According to him, the 23-year-old man had fought with Dardour and Jeddi a few days before the events and had had the upper hand. An unbearable affront for the two men. "They came to restore a kind of lost honor. That’s why they come with a war weapon, to show who they are. It’s an advertising murder," argued the criminal lawyer.