Belgium: Social Worker Stabbed to Death Making House Visit: Syrian Man Charged

Ghent, Belgium

The Belgian city of Ghent and the country at large are in shock today after a 56-year-old social worker was stabbed to death while making a house visit. The stabbing occurred in a public housing unit. 

Arrested hours later was a 38-year-old Syrian male, not further identified, who is the occupant of the apartment in question.. The man was tracked down by police, partially thanks to a surveillance camera that captured him calmly withdrawing cash from an ATM in the center of the city.

There is much discussion going on in Ghent today about how to better protect social workers and what safeguards are possible in terms of house visits in dangerous public housing areas.  Violence against social workers in these areas is increasing, and there is fear for everyone's safety.

I have an idea:

How about asking elected officials why people like the Syrian suspect are in the country in the first place? How about closing the borders? How about expelling these phony asylum-seekers, overwhelmingly unaccompanied younger men, like this particular suspect? This is hardly what I would call thinking out of the box, but such proposals are usually limited to conservative parties, like Vlaams Belang, and dismissed by the powers that be in the government as being xenophobic.

And so we await the next murder at the hands of one of these so-called refugees. I promise you it won't be long.

In the meantime, the below article from the Dutch-language Nieuwsblad is translated by Fousesquawk.

Images show how the suspect walked calmly through the busy Ghent inner city and withdrew money after the murder of OCMW employee, Erik (56).

* OCMW-Public Center for Social Welfare

The 38-year-old man who is suspected of the murder of an OCMW employee in Ghent was spotted by a camera on Wednesday evening after the incident while he was walking through the Ghent inner city.

(Time) 21:17

It is Wednesday evening at 9:46 when a camera captures a heavy-set man in flip-flops, his head covered under a hoodie, and a bright orange Basic Fit backpack on his back, walking toward an ATM machine in the center of Ghent.

The man seems calm, and the passersby don't notice anything. They can't know that, hours earlier, he killed 56-year-old Erik in his (the suspect's) public housing apartment in New Ghent. At that moment, the police were frantically searching for the man, a single (man) of Syrian background.

The camera images show the man leaving the ATM  two minutes later. He walks icy calm away from the ATM, close by the belfry in Ghent, in the direction of the Brugse Poort. It is there that the investigators would arrest him three hours later. The ATM at the belfry was one of the clues that led them to the man, sources confirm.

The man was questioned on Thursday and is being held on suspicion of murder. The death of the OCMW employee, 56-year-old Erik from Wetteren, a man with much experience, leaves a deep mark on Ghent. The OCMW service will be closed in the coming days, and on Monday, a commemoration is planned.