Brussels Chief Prosecutor Julien Moinil has once again decried chronic staff shortage among the police and Justice Department in the capital in a response to yet another shooting in the capital. Julien Moinil was speaking at a hearing in the Brussels Regional Parliament on Tuesday afternoon. Mr Moinil outlined what he described as a “disastrous situation” with regard to the management of drug crime investigations in Brussels.
Brussels Chief Prosecutor says “It’s time to wake up” after yet another shooting in the capital
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He told regional MPs of how he received a called on Saturday night concerning the fatal shooting at Clemenceau metro station in Anderlecht.
He had wanted to deploy the Brussels Federal Judicial Police crime section to conduct the operation. However, this was not possible due to insufficient staff.
Seeing is believing
According to Mr Moinil, the terrorism and human trafficking sections were even considered to conduct the investigation, but they too are overstretched. “The Brussels South Local Police Service now has to conduct the investigation with limited resources, while at the same time weapons of war are being used”.
“I do not want a political battle because that is not my role. But this cannot continue”.
The Brussels Chief Prosecutor also referred to the announcement by Federal Interior Minister Bernad Quintin (MR), promising to strengthen the Federal Police Service. However, he also cited an article published in a newspaper on Tuesday morning that asked how Mr Quintin planned to do this. Mr Moinil said that he would remain “very vigilant” with regard to promises made by the Interior Minister.
Moinil added that the police on the ground already do mountains of work. Since January, police have detained 1,347 suspects that were then formally arrested by the prosecutor's office. These included 310 suspected drug dealers, 93 of whom were immediately placed into custody. The suspects included 36 minors, 17 of these were sent to a youth detention centre.
Resources are not used efficiently
The prosecutor indicated that a lot of time and energy is also wasted in transferring detainees. While prisoners having to sleep on the floor of their cells is unacceptable, Mr Moinil says that it is also unacceptable to release someone involved in shootings on the streets.
As the prisons in Sint-Gillis and Haren (both Brussels) are overcrowded, detainees are now being transferred to the prisons at Oudenaarde (East Flanders) and Lantin (Liège Province). “Brussels police have to travel all over the country to drop off detainees. Not only does the police suffer from a lack of staff, the lack of investment in the Justice Department causes even more inconvenience to law enforcement agencies”, Mr Moinil said.
The Brussels Chief Prosecutor went on to say that while there are alternatives, such as the electronic tagging, these do not discourage “those who might have had 30,000 euros of money seized but then sit at home and even receive social security payments”
Sentence enforcement
Mr Moinil also took issue with sentence enforcement. An undocumented migrant convicted of minor offences often has to serve their full as they don’t have a steady job or a permanent address. A big drug trafficker on the other hand might get 10 years in prison but is are released after only a third of their sentence as they can provide a permanent address.
Mr Moinil also denounced the system of extended penitentiary leave, introduced to combat prison overcrowding, where an inmate is allowed to leave prison every other month for a month.‘
Although he said he is “optimistic” Mr Moinil added that it really is “time to wake up”.