This Crazy Belgian Law Allowed One of the Paris Terrorists to Escape

Police waffled as a suspect hid out in Brussels.

Armed police in Brussels during the manhunt for suspected Paris attacker Salah Abdeslam.Geert Vanden Wijngaert/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


A case of deadly international terrorism wasn’t enough to convince Belgian police to make an exception to an unusual law that appears to have prevented them from arresting one of the suspects in the Paris attacks. Two days after the ISIS attacks that killed 130, Belgian police received information that suspected attacker Salah Abdeslam was inside a home in the Molenbeek district of Brussels. But they did not raid the house because of a legal ban on conducting police raids between 9pm and 5am.

Law enforcement officers waited until the morning to conduct the raid, but by then, Abdeslam had managed to evade capture by being smuggled out of the house inside a wardrobe, according to reports. Sources close to the investigation told local news outlets that the police found evidence that Abdeslam was in the house on the night in question. “We had reason to believe Salah Abdeslam had been in that house, so we carried out a search on November 16 at 5 a.m., but he was not there,” a police spokesman said.

The law dates back to 1969, and was intended to protect Belgians’ civil rights. According to El Mundo, it cannot be circumvented except in cases of “flagrant crimes or fire.” Apparently, the coordinated attacks in Paris didn’t make the cut for such a designation. Abdeslam is still at large.

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate