Babouri's Body Has Been Stuck In Belgium For 10 Months

The body of Belgian bodyguard Khaled Babouri, who carried out the ill-fated attack in Charlerois last year, has been stranded in the city for 10 months pending the end of a relevant judicial inquiry and an official authorization to transfer his remains to Algeria, Belgian media reported.

The RTL radio channel reported that the body of Babouri is still in an unknown fate in a body-keeping facility of a Charlerois-based  institution in charge of organizing funerals.

“The problem is that there is no date or horizon for the end of this case and the transfer of the body by his family, which has been waiting for him for 10 months, but I cannot hand them over the body without a certified official document,” Dennis Fontaine, director of the institution, told the channel.

According to the channel, there is no official authorization from the Algerian authorities to transfer the body to Algeria (precisely to eastern Annaba), but the Algerian embassy is hesitant in the case because it believes that the terrorist act that took place is not an isolated act. 

The authorities of Charlerois also said that his burial in the local city’s cemetery was ruled out because his family in Algeria had asked for his deportation, but the authorities there agreed, according to the channel, to allocate a place in the municipal mortuary service pending a political decision on the case.

Khaled Babouri was killed during the attack on two policemen in Charlerois in August 2016. Belgian authorities said he had been the subject of two notices to leave Belgian soil, but the Algerian Ambassador denied this.

“We have not received any request from the Belgian foreign ministry’s office regarding his identification as an Algerian, especially since we have not received any request to implement the procedure for his deportation to Algeria,” asserted Mr. Ammar Belani, Algeria’s Ambassador to Belgium.