EUROPEAN DIARY: Robberies and assaults have papers wondering if the Belgian capital is 'le Bronx de l'Europe'
AFTER A long and chilly winter, spring has finally arrived in Brussels. The sun is up, the mood lighter, and the plush, tree-lined boulevards are newly green. There’s seating outside the cafes again and coffee drinkers are out in force.
Although Brussels can feel like the epitome of civilised metropolitan life on days like this, locals are troubled by a spate of violent crimes that have visited death out of the blue on the city’s streets.
"Black Monday", screamed Le Soirof a particularly bloody outburst a week ago. In central Brussels, a well-liked jeweller was shot dead by robbers in a lunch-hour raid and his nephew was gravely wounded. Shimshon Haimashvili, known as "Papy" to his friends, was 63. He had lived for 30 years in the Matonge district, the city's African quarter. Before succumbing to his injuries, he shot one raider in the arm.
Only hours later, another jeweller was robbed. Fearing for his life, he shot dead one of the raiders on the street outside his shop and wounded the other. The jeweller was locked up for the week and released only on Friday night, setting off a vigorous debate about the limits of legitimate self-defence.
In the first case, the Belgian police were quick to pin the blame on Estonian mafia types – two suspects in the killing are of Estonian origin.
East European criminals have long used the opening of Europe’s borders to expand their reach although gangsters from Estonia are newer on the scene in Brussels. Their specialisation is the “hit and run”, an armed raid in a foreign jewellery and a swift drive home by motorway.
This makes life difficult for investigating police as there may be little or no intelligence to be gleaned from local sources. While the two suspects are unknowns in Belgium, one of them has a record in Estonia for manslaughter and robberies. He was released from prison six months ago.
Around Matonge last Friday, about 150 people marched in memory of Shimshon Haimashvili. Many wore black bands on their arms, some of them calling for better policing in the area.
The incident is one among many that have led newspapers to ask whether Brussels is now le Bronx de l'Europe, an overstatement certainly but one that reflects the anxieties raised by random violence. The papers here report six aggressions spectaculairessince the start of the year in which shots were fired.
Belgians and many in large expatriate communities were especially shocked last month when a 46-year-old physiotherapist, who was a mother of three, was shot dead on a Friday afternoon by an attacker who tried to hijack her car. The 24-year-old gunman who killed her and had just raided a suburban jeweller has claimed from his prison cell that he never intended to open fire. It is no comfort for his victim’s family.
Nor is the violence confined to gun-slingers. A couple of weeks ago, the Brussels police posted on YouTube surveillance footage of a terrifying assault on a young Bulgarian student in a metro station on New Year’s Eve. Having been set upon by one gang when they accused him of photographing them, the student was making his way out of the station when another gang attacked. The video shows them throwing him over a wall of the station concourse onto train tracks one storey below.
The footage is shocking. It was only with the help of passengers waiting on the platform that the young man was pulled from the tracks, rescued from certain death if a train arrived.
Although he is now doing a work-experience stage in the European Parliament, members of the Bulgarian community here say some of his eye and ear injuries may be permanent. As they flee, the look on his attackers’ faces suggests a certain euphoria. Police released the video in the hope that witnesses would come forward.
None of this is to suggest that Brussels is plagued by crime or in the grip of a criminal underworld – but beneath the surface outlaws ply their nasty trade.
