Underage suspect of murder of Antwerp teenager placed in closed institution
The juvenile judge in Dendermonde has placed the 16-year-old suspect of the murder of Steven B. in Berchem in a closed institution for the time being for three months. This is reported by the Antwerp public prosecutor’s office. The 18-year-old suspect has been arrested by the investigating judge in Antwerp.
Police were able to identify three suspects shortly after the stabbing who killed 16-year-old Steven B. in Antwerp on Wednesday morning. Two suspects were arrested near the station of Aalst, their home municipality.
One of the suspects, an 18-year-old, has been arrested on suspicion of murder and will appear in court next week. The other, sixteen years old, has been placed in a closed institution by the juvenile judge for probably three months.
‘He is cooperating with the investigation,’ reports his lawyer Dirk De Maerschalck. “He’s very impressed with the whole situation, and didn’t expect it to turn out like this.” De Maerschalck does not want to answer his client’s question about what led to the fatal knife stab. “The investigation has only just begun.”
A third suspect, whose identity is known to the police, is still on the run, according to the latest information.
The stabbing is said to be part of a conflict between two drillrap groups, city gangs that are not afraid of violence. The public prosecutor also confirmed that there seems to be a link with an earlier fight and stabbing in Antwerp Central. Then a young man from an Aalst drill rap gang was stabbed. Steven B. was then arrested and spent some time in a youth institution. The attack would be an act of revengebelonged to the Aalst group.
The victim was beaten to death a few hundred meters from his home on Wednesday morning by a number of three young guys. He had been waiting for him at his parental home on the Berchemlei in Berchem. B. still managed to flee, but was stabbed several times a little further down the Wapenstistandlaan. He eventually dies in the hospital.