Veterinarian Karel Van Noppen was murdered exactly thirty years ago by the hormone mafia, a case which shocked Belgium. A wreath was laid at his memorial in Welcherzande, a district of Lille on Thursday.
Van Noppen was found shot in the head in his car on that fateful evening. He had driven away from home and was presumably stopped at a nearby intersection. His car window was shattered.
The veterinary was known for his strong stance against hormone injectors.
File picture dated 19 December 1995 of Mrs Van Noppen, widow of Karel Van Noppen, the veterinary who was murdered in , receives the "Men of the year'95" prize on behalf of her husband. Credit: Belga
After a year of investigation, three individuals were linked to the murder: Carl De Schutter (arrested in France in 1996), Germain Daenen (also arrested in 1996), and Albert Barrez, who was already in custody at the time.
In the following years, De Schutter and Barrez made several confessions, although they sometimes retracted them.
It was not until February 2000, five years after the murder, that the mastermind Alex Vercauteren was arrested.
Why was he killed? "Karel Van Noppen inspected cattle farms and slaughterhouses for hormone use," said Welcherzande Mayor Marleen Peeters (N-VA).
"We must not forget Karel's struggle," Peeters told VRT. "We should be grateful to him for getting a purer piece of meat on our plate now than we did 30 years ago when things were getting out of hand."
The Oscar-nominated film Bullhead (2011) was about the hormone mafia and largely based on this case.
