Attack on the Jewish Museum of Belgium in 2014

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The Jewish Museum of Belgium

The attack on the Jewish Museum of Belgium was an assassination attempt in Brussels on May 24, 2014, in which four people were shot dead.

The Jewish Museum of Belgium opened in Brussels in 2005 and houses a collection of objects from the Jewish tradition. The attack overshadowed the parliamentary , regional and European elections in Belgium on May 25, 2014.

background

Antwerp and Brussels are considered the centers of Jewish life in Belgium. Immediately after the country was founded in 1832 , the Jewish communities were officially recognized as religious communities. A good half of the approximately 42,000 Jews in the country now live in the capital, Brussels. With its twelve synagogues , the city not only has a long Jewish tradition, but also has a corresponding infrastructure with numerous kosher shops.

Course of events and investigations

The museum was open on Saturday May 24, 2014 and was visited by many tourists at the time of the attack. The perpetrator shot an AK-47 rapid fire weapon. He killed a married couple from Israel , who were visiting the museum as tourists, and a French intern. A museum employee sustained serious gunshot wounds, which he died the next day.

Immediately after the shooting became known, the Belgian police started the search for the perpetrator. A few hours after the attack, the German press agency reported that Brussels' mayor Yvan Mayeur had stated that there was a lead to the perpetrator, but without giving details. According to Belgian media reports, a suspect was arrested about two hours after the crime. The authorities later announced an initial arrest. A spokeswoman for the Brussels Public Prosecutor said it was a person who left the scene of the shooting in the car; however, it is still unclear whether it has anything to do with the fact.

The police released photos and videos from a surveillance camera after the crime. The alleged perpetrator wore a dark peaked cap and blue clothes during the attack. After the attack, he fled on foot, not, as was first assumed, by car. The man is said to have acted alone and was well prepared. On May 30, 2014, the alleged perpetrator was arrested in Marseille, France . When he was arrested, the suspect, 29-year-old Mehdi Nemmouche with a French passport, had an assault rifle and a pistol with him. Both weapons may be the murder weapon. Nemmouche had also recorded a video that is interpreted as a confession. He is suspected of having met with militant jihadists during his year-long stay in Syria in 2013 . The authorities are trying to identify possible perpetrators of the attack.

According to a report by the anti-terrorist unit of the French Police nationale , which was produced after the terrorist attacks on November 13, 2015 in Paris , Nemmouche had called Abdelhamid Abaaoud months before his attack on the museum and spoke to him for 24 minutes.

Convictions

At the beginning of March 2019, after eight weeks of hearing and circumstantial evidence, the accused Frenchman of Algerian descent was found guilty on all counts after the judgment of the Brussels jury court. On March 11, 2019, the court decided that the sentence was life imprisonment , and no appeal was lodged. In France, where he has to answer for the kidnapping of four journalists in Syria, he is also facing another trial.

The court sentenced his accomplice Nacer Bendrer, who had obtained the Kalashnikov, to fifteen years imprisonment for aiding and abetting . The defense filed an appeal, which was dismissed on September 18, 2019, making the judgment final.

Reactions

The President of the Israelite Central Council of Belgium, Julien Klener, said after the attack that there had been no threats against the museum. However, Joël Rubinfeld, President of the Belgian League Against Anti-Semitism, said:

"The murderer deliberately went to a Jewish museum."

It was only a matter of time before something like this happened. In the end it has always been easier to utter anti-Semitic slogans. Anti-Semitism has increased and the act is "the result of a climate that spreads hatred."

Israeli President Shimon Peres condemned the act and called on Europeans to take action against all forms of anti-Semitism. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the act and described it as the result of incitement against Israel.

Pope Francis expressed his deep regret and great sadness about the attack. On arrival at Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv, he spoke of a “criminal act of anti-Semitic hatred”.

Web links

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jüdische Allgemeine, May 26, 2014
  2. ^ Incident in Brussels: three people die in a shooting in the Jewish Museum. In: Spiegel Online . May 24, 2014, accessed June 10, 2018 .
  3. ^ A b Dead in a shooting in the Jewish Museum in Brussels - Deutschlandfunk on May 24, 2014
  4. ^ Fatal shots in the Jewish Museum in Brussels - Deutsche Welle on May 24, 2014
  5. ↑ a b Police start a major manhunt for a suspected assassin - FAZ, May 25, 2014
  6. ^ Sascha Lehnartz: Film confession of the Brussels terrorist attacker - Die Welt , June 1, 2014, accessed on June 11, 2014
  7. ^ Rukmini Callimachi: "How ISIS Built the Machinery of Terror Under Europe's Gaze", in: The New York Times , March 29, 2016.
  8. ↑ https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/bruessel-juedisches-museum-101.html
  9. ↑ tagesschau.de: Lifelong after the attack on the Jewish Museum in Brussels. Retrieved March 12, 2019 .
  10. ↑ lalibre.be: Attentat au Musée juif de Belgique: le pourvoi en cassation de Nacer Bendrer, condamné à 15 ans de prison, est rejeté. Retrieved September 18, 2019 (French).
  11. ^ Times of Israel