Fugitive Faces Justice: Moroccan Man Retried for Brutal Car Deal Murder in Belgium

Omar Ettaleb will appear before the Liège Assize Court on Wednesday at 2:00 pm. This first hearing will be devoted to the constitution of the jury. The trial will be presided over by Véronique Mélot. It should last two or three weeks. The substantive debates should begin on Monday, September 8 at 9:00 am.

The facts for which Omar will be retried took place on the night of June 28 to 29, 2019. The Moroccan had taken Ilyas Kosker, 44, by car. The two men were in business for the sale of a VW Golf vehicle. Subsequently, Ilyas Kosker received two bullets in the back and died on the spot. His body had then been sprayed with gasoline, set on fire before being transported by car to Visé to be buried. Without success. The body had finally been taken to the woods of Amonines. But in moving the body, Omar and his accomplices had lost the head of the corpse. This had been found in May 2022.

According to the investigation, the head had revealed a point-blank shot to the back of the base of the skull and a frontal shot with a 9mm caliber bullet. Omar and two other co-defendants will be arrested. A trial then opened before the Liège Assize Court in October 2023. The Moroccan had only attended part of the trial during which he had broken his electronic bracelet and had fled. Declared guilty of theft with the aggravating circumstance of murder, the Moroccan then on the run, had been sentenced by default by the Liège Assize Court to the sentence of life imprisonment.

The co-defendants had designated him as the initiator of a plan that consisted of executing Ilyas after having made him believe in the purchase of a car. One of them had been acquitted.