Belgium: Police chief suspended
01 May 1997
New allegations linking the police commissioner for Schaarbeek, Johan Demol, with the far-right organisation Front de la Jeunesse (FJ) have led to him being suspended. Evidence produced by the newspaper Solidair includes membership lists that appear to indicate that Demol joined the FJ in April 1979, maintaining his membership into 1980. Further evidence produced by Solidair suggests that not only was Demol a member of the FJ, but he visited its party headquarters on thirteen separate occasions during 1979/80, including meetings of the organisations national committee.
The first indications of Demol's past appeared in the De Morgen newspaper at the beginning of last year, when a leaked copy of a 1984 Rijkswacht report connected Demol to a group of police officers in the anti-terrorist "Diane" organisation. Diane was discovered to have connections to a host of far-right organisations, including the notorious Westland New Post as well as the FJ.
Demol has always denied being a member of any fascist organisation and although FJ leader Francis Dossogne verified De Morgen's claim he later retracted his admission when questioned by the P-committee. The Belgian Home Affairs Minister, Johan Vandelanotte, chose not to take any action against Demol, stating: "we should not draw conclusions about people based on what they might have done ten years ago".
However new material compiled by Solidair claims that not only was Demol a member of the FJ in April 1979 but that he attended national committee meetings in the same month. Here he met Michel Libert, number three in the Westland New Post, as well as Jean-Marie Paul, later accused of the murder of an Algerian and Marcel Barbier, convicted of a double murder carried out in the name of Westland New Post. Solidair now claims that Demol was a member of an elite FJ group, some of whose members later transformed themselves into Westland New Post.
Solidair also claims that other members of the FJ, known as the G-Group, later formed the "Nijvel" gang responsible for a series of violent robberies later dubbed "the Brabant massacres".
Following the evidence published by Solidair Minister Vandelanotte suspended Demol, claiming that his earlier denials of being a member of FJ had seriously damaged his credibility. Demol's appeal against his suspension was recently rejected by the Raad van State, Belgium's supreme court.
Solidair, 4 & 18.6.97.