The federal public prosecutor opened the file based on an online documentary that a Palestinian journalist distributed a year ago. In it the man appeared as a member of an Israeli elite unit with about twenty other snipers. The Snipert team, which falls under the parachutist battalion 202 of the Israeli army, was linked to three shelling of apparently unarmed Palestinians in the docu.
However, the filmed shelling on Palestinians cannot be assigned to the Belgian Sniper based on the research of De Tijd. That raises the question whether he can be prosecuted, only on the basis of his membership of the same snip team. In the meantime, criminal proceedings have also been opened against members of the same snip team from those countries in France, Italy and South Africa. But how likely is it that the judicial investigation into the Belgian will lead to a prosecution?
Spokesperson Yasmina Vanoverschelde of the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office confirms the time that the investigation still runs after almost a year. The competent investigating judge does not want to release any details at the moment.
The Belgian-Israeli sniper has not been living in our country since February 2022, but just because of its dual nationality, our public prosecutor remains authorized to investigate possible war crimes. Earlier it became known that the man previously lived in Uccle and that his family is active in the real estate sector, both in Belgium and elsewhere in the world.
