Posted on 04/10/2016 7:47:12 PM PDT by rey
In the wake of the attacks on the Brussels Airport and Métro, the Belgian security services have come in for much criticism. More significantly, in my opinion, the attacks have exposed the sheer frivolity of the Belgian criminal-justice system, a frivolity that it shares with the British and French systems, and no doubt several others, and which has turned the fight against crime into an elaborate and expensive—though lucrative—charade. Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the case of the brothers El Bakraoui, Ibrahim and Khalid, who blew themselves up, together with many innocents, at the airport and in the Métro, respectively. I quote from the report in the French newspaper, Libération: At the end of June, 2015, the Turkish authorities informed the Belgian embassy in Ankara that a certain Ibrahim El Bakraoui had been arrested at the Syrian border and that he was being sent to the Netherlands. The future airport kamikaze was already known to the Belgian police: he had previously been sentenced to nine years’ imprisonment for having shot at a policeman with a Kalashnikov during an armed robbery. Despite the unfavourable report from the prison in which he was held, the Tribunal for the Application of Punishments [the equivalent of the Parole Board] granted him conditional release in October, 2014 involving monthly appointments with probation.
Whatever may be the situation in the land of the Second Amendment, in Belgium, the possession and use of a Kalashnikov is not generally a sign of good citizenship or of a momentary lapse therefrom, such as we may all from time to time suffer.
(Excerpt) Read more at city-journal.org ...
“Despite the unfavourable report from the prison in which he was held, the Tribunal for the Application of Punishments [the equivalent of the Parole Board] granted him conditional release in October, 2014 involving monthly appointments with probation.”
You can’t make this stuff up; people on a one-way mission don’t lose sleep over missing their monthly probation appointments...
Really? That's discouraging.
Thanks for posting. I looked yesterday for his most recent pieces, but couldn't figure out City Journal's updated website.
Ah, thank you!
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