Far-right ties in Belgian murders
A Belgian teenager accused of killing two people in a race attack in Antwerp has far-right family links, police say.
Hans van Themsche shot a pregnant black nanny from Mali and a two-year-old white girl in her care, before himself being shot and injured by police.
Mr Van Themsche, 18, also shot and injured a woman of Turkish descent.
“He obviously was in search of people of foreign origin to shoot them down. That’s what he declared himself,” a public prosecution spokeswoman said.
The spokeswoman, Dominique Reyniers, added that the suspect was questioned on Friday and was due to appear in court after his recovery in hospital.
We have to avoid our society being sucked into a spiral of violence
Belgian PM Guy Verhofstadt
Police say Mr Van Themsche’s father helped found the now defunct anti-immigration party Vlaams Blok, and his aunt is an MP for its successor, Vlaams Belang.
Vlaams Belang won regional elections in Flanders in 2004, but has been kept out of government by a coalition of all the other parties in the Flemish assembly.
The Belgian government has strongly condemned the shootings, describing them as an extreme form of racism.
Hundreds of people marched in Antwerp on Friday to condemn the attacks.
Calls for calm
The shooting spree began on Thursday, after Mr Van Themsche bought a hunting rifle in a shop in Antwerp.
He walked to the city centre and shot the woman of Turkish descent in the chest, as she sat reading a book on a bench.
The woman was badly injured but survived the attack.
The teenager than shot two more people – the pregnant woman from Mali and the white toddler in her care – killing them both.
Police later intercepted Mr Van Themsche, and shot and wounded him in the stomach after he refused to put down his gun.
Mr Van Themsche – an agricultural college student – was reportedly asked to leave boarding school just days earlier for smoking. He also reportedly left a farewell letter.
Following the shootings, Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt called for calm.
“We have to avoid our society being sucked into a spiral of violence,” he said. “The police and the judicial system will do all that is needed for justice to be done.”
The killings follow an attack last Saturday in the city of Bruges, in which a black Frenchman was left in a coma after being beaten up by a group of skinheads.
Story from BBC NEWS
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By: Ben. - 14th May 2006 at 20:30
People tend to forget very rapidly. And it would be wrong to say they are neo-nazi’s because they most certainly are not. Then they woudl not have the popular vote. At first look they seem very moderate, and a foreigner would just describe them as “conservatives”, however, they are racists.
By: laviticus - 13th May 2006 at 12:37
I cannot understand how Belgium has a far right party with such a large voting public,when a not too distant history of conflict in Europe involved the race hate you are seeing today.surly most of these peoples families where affected in some way by the war, and you’d have thought history had proved what a can of worms this sort of action can open.
By: Ben. - 13th May 2006 at 11:05
This is a very sad affair,this typifies the ridiculous side of racism “he was obviously in search of people of foreign origin to shoot them down”.
So it was a colour thing ,because any one of pale skin avoided attack,this never ever fails to shock me ,the whole prejudice against a colour thing.We all talk to one another on here mostly civilly, and as statistics go some of us may Haber race issues,is this due to the point that your skin colour is not posted….
dave
You are ofcourse right, Laviticus, but unlike the UK, Belgium has a extreme far-right party which accounts for 25% of the votes. This party, Vlaams Belang, openly condemns this kind of violence, but it is well known that they have a lot of “spin-offs” (can’t find a better word for it) which do support these criminal acts. The past few weeks Belgium has been going through a lot of racial attacks and even murders. Though these problems exist everywhere, the situation in Belgium is problematic because we are the only country where the extreme-right is not regarded as a marginal political party, consisting of skinheads, but as a political solution to all of our country’s problems.
By: laviticus - 13th May 2006 at 09:36
This is a very sad affair,this typifies the ridiculous side of racism “he was obviously in search of people of foreign origin to shoot them down”.
So it was a colour thing ,because any one of pale skin avoided attack,this never ever fails to shock me ,the whole prejudice against a colour thing.We all talk to one another on here mostly civilly, and as statistics go some of us may Haber race issues,is this due to the point that your skin colour is not posted….
dave
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May 12, 2006 at 10:41 pm