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New Website for Belgium’s Most Wanted Fugitives | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Hicham Chaib, ISIS chief executioner. Getty Images


Brussels- Federal Justice Minister Koen Geens launched the new website, Belgium’s most wanted, a list of 20 convicted fugitives currently sought by the federal police’s Fugitive Active Search Team (FAST).

The aim of the website is to capture the criminals faster by enlisting the help of the public.

The website contains a selection of the country’s 20 most wanted fugitive convicts with an international arrest warrant against them.

A photo of each fugitive is linked to information about their conviction. Visitors to the site also have the opportunity to leave an anonymous tip.

The initiative has already paid off, with one arrest since the site’s launch on Saturday.

The suspect, Marc De Block, was about to get into a car, which he had already loaded with suitcases, and was getting ready to flee to France.

Marc De Block was sentenced to seven years in prison by the appeal court in 2010, for drugs offences.

Chief among those 20 is Hicham Chaib, 42, who joined Sharia group in Belgium before leaving for Syria to join Al-Nusra.

He allegedly joined ISIS at a later date and became their executioner. He appeared in a video claiming the Brussels attacks and who was convicted in absentia to 15 years in prison.

Two other Belgian citizens, Azeddine Kbir Bounekoub and Soufiane Mezroui, both 24 years old, are also convicted for having joined the Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front in Syria; the former has become a leader of the Nusra group.

The rest of the list comprises of criminals convicted for murder, armed robberies, hostage taking and drug-related offenses.

Unlike similar webpages by international police agencies Interpol and Europol, the Belgian list does not contain any suspects, only convicted criminals on the run.