Suspects in Brussels officer's killing also tied to Ixelles shooting, reports say

The killing in Jette

Nordine El Talbi, a 41-year-old Brussels police officer with the Anti-Aggression Brigade (BAA), was shot dead in Jette in the night of 12 to 13 October 2026. Earlier that evening a car had been carjacked in Tubize, and the BAA was alerted that the stolen vehicle was in Jette. According to Le Soir, officers went to the scene around 23:00, while De Standaard places the moment at around midnight. El Talbi went ahead on foot in plain clothes to check a parked car on the Carton de Wiart avenue, and its occupants opened fire on him from inside the vehicle. A bullet struck him in the head, and his colleagues later found him lying beside the car. Prosecutor Julien Moinil told the press that five men had been in the car, one of whom fired the fatal shot, and that the attackers left three handguns on the pavement before fleeing on foot.

A shooting hours earlier in Ixelles

At 17:50 on Monday 12 October, a man was shot dead in the hall of an apartment building on rue Wiertz, in Ixelles' European Quarter, where many residents work for the EU institutions. The victim, an Albanian man with no criminal record in Belgium, was hit by seven or eight pistol bullets, according to La Libre and De Standaard, and witnesses saw three or four men run away. De Standaard reports that several sources point to a settling of scores in the drug trade, and that the case shows all the hallmarks of a contract killing. At the prosecutor's first press conference after the police killing, it was said that no link appeared to exist between the two shootings. Investigators are now convinced the same perpetrators were involved, and De Standaard reports that camera footage led to a decisive breakthrough.

Arrests and charges

The suspected killers fled abroad after the shootings. Three were arrested in Almería, Spain, less than a week later, apparently on their way to Morocco, and a fourth was arrested at a station in Paris. One of the four is a minor. All four have since been handed over to Belgium. Two more suspects were arrested in Brussels shortly after the shootings. One was released by the chamber of council for lack of sufficient evidence against him, while the other remains in custody. Le Soir reports that suspects have been charged over the officer's death, and all of them are Brussels residents known in the drug scene.

Arrested abroad4

Arrested in Brussels2

Arrested abroad

4

Arrested in Brussels

2

Data from the article text

What is still unconfirmed

The link between the two killings rests on De Standaard's reporting, which cites several sources, and the Brussels prosecutor's office has not confirmed it. Le Soir notes that the information has not been confirmed by the parquet. At the first press conference, the prosecutor said no suspect had yet been arrested over the Wiertz street killing. VRT News said it had been able to confirm the report, and the drug-trade motive is attributed to what several sources point to rather than to any official finding.