• Home /
• Statewatch Database /
• Belgium: Police chief link

Belgium: Police chief link

01 January 1996

The chief of police in Schaarbeek has been linked to far-right groups. The Belgian newspaper De Morgen has alleged that police chief Johan Demol was a paid-up member of the far-right organisation Front de la Jeunesse (FJ), who were involved in a number of attacks on migrants in the early eighties There have been further allegations that Demol was a member of a neo-nazi cell of police officers in the anti-terrorist group Diane which had links with fascist groups. There are also alleged links with the "Nijvel Gang", who were involved in a series of robberies connected to the Gladio network. De Morgen's source is a report prepared in 1984 by Major Kensier, an officer in the Belgian gendarmerie (Rrijkswacht). The report connects Demol with, among others Michel van Hove, a known fascist who was sentenced to three years in prison in 1982 after being convicted of an arson attack on a left-wing newspaper. Kensier also links Demol to a weapons theft from the "Diane" group. The weapons concerned later turned up in connection with the"Nijvel" gang. Demol has denied being a member of the FJ. However De Morgen has since produced a follow-up article publishing a document in which the FJ leader Dossogne supports their claim that Demol was a fully paid-up member. Demol once claimed that nearly all drug dealers in his community were second or third generation migrants: "We have arrested Albanians, Turks and Moroccans, but never any Belgians, or at least Belgians by descent." Minister Vande Lanotte has reacted cautiously to the revelation about Demol's past activities, saying that "we should not draw conclusions about people on the basis of what they might have done ten years ago". However, the party newspaper of the fascist group Vlaams Blok published an extensive interview with Demol in its January issue. De Morgen, 15.1.96; Solidair, 17.1.96 & 24.1.96.