Midi police officers accused of colluding with criminal gang

Three police officers from the Brussels-Midi police zone have gone on trial for collusion with the criminal underworld following a shooting incident that claimed a young life.

The prosecution is asking for prison sentences between 15 and 20 months for the men. However, the police officers continue to maintain their innocence, and their lawyers will defend them at the next hearing.

The events date back to July 2020. A young man, Soufiane Benali, was shot dead in a drug-related shootout. The young man was allegedly a member of the 'Orban' gang, named after the Forest street said to be a drug-selling area.

The day after Benali’s murder, three people turned up at the police station in the Midi area saying they believed they could uncover information about who was responsible for Benali’s death.

The three police officers now on trial are accused of having asked these men - who were nicknamed the “sheriffs” - to find the people presumed to have killed Benali. To do so, they provided them with confidential information, prosecutors claim.

In particular, they are accused of disclosing a photo of the alleged perpetrators of the murder. However, the photos were taken from the BNG [Banque de données Nationale Générale], a database reserved for police officers. The photo was said to have been sent by a defendant identified in court as P.N., formerly head of the Silva brigade in the Midi police zone.

At the hearing, P.N. admitted having sent the photo, but said he never asked the “sheriffs” to take the law into their own hands.

“I did everything I could to dissuade them from doing something,” he said. He also said that he kept the investigating judge in charge of the case informed at every stage of the proceedings.

However, when Benali was murdered, the SER [Service d’Enquête et de Recherche] investigation and research department for the Midi police zone was in charge of the case. The Silva brigade was supposed to support its investigation and provide expertise in the field.

The Silva brigade would have been “a small clan, a kind of in-between group where the police officers themselves deal with the information that comes back to them from the field,” prosecutors said. “The police officers had links with the clans involved in drug trafficking.”

Today, the three police officers are being prosecuted for criminal conspiracy, forgery, breach of professional secrecy and investigative secrecy. In addition to having provided confidential information to the "sheriffs", the police officers are also alleged to have covered up their trail.

In his indictment, the public prosecutor said the officers’ offences were “extremely serious”. He underlined that their acts were “such so that they undermined the legitimate trust that we are entitled to expect of police officers.”

The trial continues.