Belgium: Murders committed for Abu Nidal

Abdelkader Belliraj (51), the suspected terrorist from Evergem, will stand trial in Morocco starting today.  He is suspected of being the military leader of a 33-member terrorist group which wanted to violently overthrow the Moroccan regime.  Belliraj is also charged with six murders he committed in Belgium in the late 80s.  Murders which he confessed to the police but which he later denied to the magistrate.

Abdelkader Belliraj was interrogated by the Moroccan police four times after his arrest, on February 16, 18, 26 and 27.  The editors of Nieuwsblad were able to take a look at parts of the interrogation which had been translated from Arabic to French.

Belliraj told the police also about the attacks he committed in the late 80s in Belgium.  He said he met Palestinian Abu Ali in Algeria, who worked for the Abu Nidal Palestinian terrorist group, which was sponsored by Libya.

In his interrogation on Feb. 16, 2008 Belliraj said: "On request of Abu Ali I went back to Belgium in the late 80s in order to set up a jihadist cell.  He asked me to seek confrontation in Belgium with the Jews and the moderate Saudis.  Abu Nidal wanted to pressure also the Saudis since they only gave money to Arafat's PLO and not to Abu Nidal."

"The organization had a training camp in Saida in Lebanon, where the Arab volunteers were trained.  All men who wanted to fight for Palestine.  The men that I afterward recruited in Belgium went there."

"It was my task to look for and to execute in Belgium Jewish and Arab target.  For the reports that I made about possible targets I got 200 or 300 American dollars from Abu Ali."

In the interrogation Belliraj remembered barely one of the six targets by name: the Jewish doctor Joseph Wybran.  The investigators had had to find the names of the rest later based on the description of the events given by Belliraj.

In his statements Belliraj also described the weapons and cars used.  Some details fit, others don't.  Belliraj says that he committed the murders with a group of five accomplices.  In the interrogations he also named them.  This is what he stated about the victims:

Raoul Schouppé (65), grocer in the Brussels South station, July 23, 1988.  Belliraj: "the first victim was an herborist and former soldier who had a shop in the neighborhood where I lived.  He was a former soldier and a Jew.  Therefore he had to die.  I committed the execution myself."

Marcel Bille (53), tailor, August 1988.  Belliraj: "He was a deviant, an homosexual and a Jew. He paid Moroccan students for sexual relations.  My accomplices and I agreed that he had to die.  We approached him in a cafe at Brussels South and shot him in the car.  We dumped his body in a forest.

Abdullah Al Abdal (36), imam of the Great Mosque in Brussels, and his librarian Salem Bahri, March 26, 1989.

Belliraj: "The imam was a moderate Saudi and Abu Nidal wanted for strategic reason to kill Saudis.  He wanted to pressure the Saudi regime in this way.  The imam also expressed himself moderately about The Satanic Verses.  the other man was the deputy head.  He was accidentally in the area.  He was killed in the same way.  After the execution I was informed that the operation succeeded."

Samir Gahez Rasoul (24), Egyptian handyman of the Saudi Arabian embassy, June 20, 1989.  Belliraj: "The Egyptian was a mistake.  The executor panicked.  It was dark in the lobby of the apartment building. The executors shot the wrong one.  I informed Abu Ali.  He claimed the attack in the name of another organization in order to sow confusion."

Joseph Wybran (49), head of the coordinating committee of Jewish associations, Oct. 3, 1989.  Belliraj: "The Jewish doctor was an important target as head of the Jewish community and was therefore executed by a member of our group.  I was also on hand."

Meanwhile a Belgian committee of five investigators is already in Morocco for more than a week.  they could visit Belliraj there in his cell.  According to official sources he denied to the Belgian investigators that he knew anything of the six murders which were committed in Belgium.

Source: Nieuwsblad (Dutch)

See also: Belgium: Terrorist leader committed six murders, Belgium: Terrorist leader interrogated already in 1989, Belgium: The Saudi murders, Belgium: Belliraj murders

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