Brabant Killings: DNA Setback, But Director Sees Hope
The Belgian Federal Prosecutor’s Office confirmed on July 30 that DNA comparisons from the exhumations of three bodies in Charleville-Mézières, France, returned negative results in the decades-old Brabant Killings investigation. Despite this setback, Eddy Vos, the former investigation director of the case, believes there is still “a good card to play,” drawing inspiration from Australian cold case breakthroughs with the question: “The Australians did it, why not us?”
The French Trail Weakens
The exhumations were carried out on May 27 at the Grand-Rulut cemetery in Charleville-Mézières, where the bodies of Xavier Sliman, his mother, and his father were unearthed. Thierry Sliman, Xavier’s brother, was cremated after his death and could not be tested. The exhumations were ordered in late 2025 by the Mons Court of Appeal at the request of several civil parties, to verify the previously neglected trail of the Sliman brothers, two figures of organized crime in the Ardennes who have since died.
The DNA comparisons were conducted against traces preserved in the case file, including cigarette butts. According to La Libre, the negative results weaken the French trail and, with it, hopes of shedding light on these crimes.
Eddy Vos: “Every Medal Has Its Reverse Side”
Speaking to DH Les Sports+, Vos, who spent 15 years leading the investigation, said: “It’s a shame, of course. We always hope to find a formal element to unblock this investigation. But every medal has its reverse side, and for my part, I draw the conclusion that the hypothesis I defend comes out strengthened.”
Vos has long advocated for what he calls a “taskforce of the last chance” — bringing together investigators, magistrates, and experts who worked on the major investigation tracks of the 1980s. In a September 2025 interview, he proposed: “Why not gather around the table the leaders of the major investigation tracks, those still alive who worked at the beginning, those who took over the case and those who investigated other major cases of the 1980s, to bring them together and listen to them without preconceptions, with an open and creative mind.”
The former detective’s reference to Australia points to recent breakthroughs there using investigative genetic genealogy, where police have matched crime scene DNA against ancestry databases to solve decades-old cases.
Civil Parties Demand Answers
Patrick Ramaël, the French lawyer representing several civil parties, expressed frustration at not being informed directly of the DNA results. “I was not informed either by the prosecutor’s office or by the investigating judge of the DNA comparison results. There is contempt for the civil parties in this case,” he told Le Soir. However, he added: “I remain confident, this does not undermine my conviction that this case will come out.”
A Case That Shook Belgium
The Brabant Killers (Bende van Nijvel in Dutch, Tueurs du Brabant in French) were responsible for a series of violent armed robberies in Belgium between 1982 and 1985, resulting in 28 deaths and 22 injuries. The gang, believed to consist of a core of three men, attacked supermarkets, restaurants, and arms shops with extreme violence, often taking only small amounts of money.
The second wave of attacks in autumn 1985 was particularly brutal, with 16 people killed between September 27 and November 9 — some while doing their grocery shopping. The case was made imprescriptible through legislation adopted before the original deadline of November 2025.
In June 2024, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office officially announced it would no longer conduct investigations on its own initiative, leaving civil parties the option to request additional investigative acts. As The Brussels Times reported, David Van de Steen, a survivor of the Aalst attack who lost both parents and his sister, denounced the case’s closure and the “incompetent and corrupt judicial system.”
What’s Next
While the negative DNA results represent a significant blow to the French trail, Vos insists the investigation is not over. The exhumations themselves, as France 3 Grand Est reported, required closing the cemetery in Charleville-Mézières for the day — a sign of the judicial weight still attached to this case after more than four decades.
Whether the “taskforce of the last chance” proposed by Vos gains traction, or whether civil parties pursue new investigative avenues, the question remains: will Belgium’s most notorious unsolved case ever yield answers? For now, the families of the 28 victims continue to wait.