Police looking for Dutch men in connection with fatal shooting of Belgian girl, 11
The police are searching for two men, believed to be Dutch, who may have information about the fatal shooting of an 11-year-old Firdaous in Belgium in January 2023. The men are known by the nicknames Libby and Kleine Pagel, the police said on Opsporing Verzocht on Tuesday.
On January 9, 2023, someone opened fire on a home on Nieuwdreef in Antwerp. Bullets went through a garage door to the kitchen, where the girl and her family were eating. Firdaous was killed. Her father and sisters, aged 13 and 18 at the time, were injured.
The Amsterdam police received information that Libby and Kleine Pagel may know more about what happened on the night Firdaous was killed. The police asked the men to make contact with investigators, anonymously if necessary. They also asked anyone with information about their whereabouts to come forward.
The police said on Tuesday that the wanted men were not the two suspects seen in security camera footage from that day, which the police previously shared. The police are still looking for those suspects.
Shortly after the fatal shooting in 2023, then-mayor Bart De Wever of Antwerp blamed the attack on a drug war. “Criminals are attacking the homes of other criminals,” De Wever said at the time. “We’ve been experiencing this for months, and what I’ve long feared has happened: an innocent vitum has fallen, a child.”
According to ANP, Firdaous was the niece of Belgian drug lord Othman E.B. The Belgian authorities suspect him of large-scale cocaine trafficking. Dubai extradited Othman E.B. to Belgium over the summer. Another of the young victim’s uncles, Younes E.B., has been convicted of drug trafficking on multiple occasions.
