Question about two rally drivers (from the '70s-'80s era)

I am searching for proof it he following two Belgians were rally driver in the '70s and/or '80s, the media claims both were rally drivers but I have not been able to find any records on them; both had a significant criminal record:

Alain Vinckx stunt car driver, he was a 'cascadeur' (driving /jumping through buses) died at Zandvoort when a stunt went wrong. Some say he even did Paris-Dakar, found no record of it.

Pierre Maréchal is the other one. In his case he probably drove in the '60s

Would like to / need to know if they really were rally drivers or not. Vincx was quite well known as a stunt man.

Both are suspects in the 'Bende van Nijvel Case' (Brabant Killers in English), the most notorious case of crime spree with a political intent (to create fear and create a climate for a far right coup détat). During the '82-'85 era they targeted, amongst other, supermarket shoppers by bursting in and killing people at randomn. The worst attack was in Aalst in '85 with 8 dead on one raid, shortly before they had raided 2 supermarkets at one night also killing 8 on a single day. They went in to kill, not for loot, and always waited for police to arrive to start a shoot out with them.

In December justice burried up Vinckx grave to check his DNA. Both Vinckx & Maréchal were suspects of driving the getaway car and participating in the killings. Vinckx was in '83 spotted driving a stolen Saab, that car later attacked the a supermarket in Nivelles (3 dead including a police man and one heavy wou). That Colruyt supermarket was right next to the abandoned Niveles race track were Vincx practiced his stunts.

Who can look up / confirm if they were rally drivers or not?

Edited by William Hunt, 11 January 2021 - 21:12.

There was a Marechal entered in Rally Circuit des Trois Provinces of 1968, driving a Ford Cortina, according to the eWCR site. No mention of his first name and he does not appear in any other rally.

Pierre Marechal?  First Aston Martin works team fatality - Le Mans 1949 - British national of French extraction...whose father was a Titanic survivor...

DCN

The nationality has to be Belgian and Maréchal is not that uncommon as a name.

Pierre Maréchal was 20 years in 1949 and was said to have competed in rallies in the '50s-'60s (Vincx in the '70s - '80s)

The mass killers / terrorists operated in teams of 3 people with the same features / looks and usually in the formation: one giant, one 'killer' and one 'old guy'.
The old guy drove the getaway car (a Golf GTi) at the murderous raid at the Delhaize supermarket in Aalst (8 dead on the spot, many wounded), Aalst was in November '85, Maréchal (who fled to Spain shortly after Aalst) would have been 56 during the Aalst raid and the raids on supermarkets in Braine (Eigenbrakel) & Overijse.
There was an anonymous source that claimed that Maréchal did Braine & Overijse but stopped after Overijse because a child got killed, in Aalst 3 children were shot: 1 dead,  2 just survived, at Braine also a child was shot but survived. For Aalst far right gangster Christian Elnikov seems prime suspect for the role of the 'old guy'.
Maréchal was a former para who had done time in Congo so military trained (the gangsters who did the raid used military techniques), he also owned a Golf GTi as his private car so he knew how to drive it.
 

They were suspecting that the driver of the getaway car on those last 3 raids was a rally driver or someone who knew the skills. One of the witnesses at Aalst was a former rally drive who claimed the driver used the same technique.

36 years after the final big raid (there were still killings in later years: witnesses, potential suspects and even an investigator that died in suspicious circumstances, this is still 'in the news' in Belgium and the case is still open (until 2025) and actively investigated. Suspects of the killings were from the far right, federal police ('rijkswacht') and criminal milieu.
All trails lead to state security / secret service, a christian democratic politician and former prime minister (who was kidnapped at one point), a liberal politician and the CIA. This is like the biggest case in the history of our country (a bit like Olof Palme in Sweden) and no-one expects to ever get the responsible people convicted (they are too high up and too well protected) but if we could at least find the killers that would be something.

As a teenager I remember how my parents forbid me to enter a Delhaize supermarket (mostly Delhaize was targeted, also Colruyt), how there were snipers on the roof of supermarkets (at Aalst they were called away just before the raid!), it was a frightening time and the images of blood from inocent supermarket customers on tv news are still vivid.

Edited by William Hunt, 12 January 2021 - 10:03.

Aren't ALL Belgians rally drivers?  I thought it was a law or something.

No, that was Finland.

They don't need to have such  a law in Finland.  You have to be a rally driver just to get to the shops.

I rallied in Belgium in the period 82-85 mentioned above (and used to read a French language Belgian magazine that covered rallying). I never heard anything about all this.

Perhaps I shouldn't have gone into any supermarkets.... 

I rallied in Belgium in the period 82-85 mentioned above (and used to read a French language Belgian magazine that covered rallying). I never heard anything about all this.

Perhaps I shouldn't have gone into any supermarkets.... 

How is this possible? In '85 there were snipers on many supermarkets, for sure on the ones in the Brabant region and the ones close to Brabant & Brussels. The thing is: every time they attacked the security / snipers (who were federal police, in those days still called 'gendarmerie' or 'rijkswacht', a militarised police) were called away and left the scene which created the suspicion of citizen that the attacks were performed by gendarmerie. We now know for sure that former gendarmerie was involved and that they had radio equipment to call them away. 
The attacks in those days, in particular in '85 were on everybody's lips and often the main theme in news papers (it's still a major theme to this day).
In the same era '81-'85 there was also a spree of attacks on money transfer vehicles (Hamers Gang, they were very violent and often killed) and on post offices (De Staercke Gang aka Gang of Baasrode, they avoided shooting though) so there was a very violent climate back then in Belgium, in particular in the Brussels region where most of the violence happened.

What set the Nijvel Gang apart was that there was almost no loot each time, it was terror with a political motive. In '84 they had a break but in that year CCC took over with bomb attacks (that was also suspected to be a CIA covert operation). Italy & Germany also had a lot of violence in those days and Luxemburg had the 'bommenleer' and Sweden the murder of their prime Minister Olof Palme (which was done by the police), in Italy there was also terror with as low point the bombing of the Bologna train station: huge amount of casualties, CIA was proven to behind that via the P2 loge since it was uncovered there which was a parrellel Gladio network that included people from the military & state security of Itay. P2 had infiltrated the Haemers gang  in Belgium. The '80s sure were violent in Europe...

I don't know if you can understand Dutch, this is a doc about the blood Aalst Delhaize raid in November '85:

This is also interesting, about the attack in Overijse (5 killled), it also features a British woman (4:56 in the video and again at 7:32) who was a witness and is interviewed here as well, one of the 5 victims, a banker with links to arms trade and the far right, is suspected to be dumped on the scene whilst he was already dead (as witnesses are suggesting here):

Here also a very good BBC documentary from 1992 about the case (in 3 parts, this is part 3) that features 2 suspects talking to the camera (Michel Libert & Martial Lekeu, the latter one speaking with only his shadow visible, he had fled to the US in '84, Belgium had actually demanded the US to extradicte Lekeu since he said things publcally that he could only know if he had done at least one attack, he was suspected to have done Temse in '83, but the US refused... claiming his life would not have been safe here):

Edited by William Hunt, 13 January 2021 - 03:57.

I happened to come across this thread on the dreaded Paddock Club forum...

https://forums.autos...rabant-killers/

Also this character was a chilling discovery when reading about this case, similar to various police officer suspected to be involved in the Palme assassination! 

https://murderpedia....uche-madani.htm

https://youtu.be/8g5hU-g0PwA

https://www.brussels...-who-what-when/

Hi folks,
(long time no see)

We decided to remove Alain Vinckx from the Lest We Forget section of The Motorsport Memorial due to lack of evidence that he actually took part in any motorsport activity - being that as a competitor or in any other role.

The statement above should not be interpreted as a definite position on Vinckx's absence of engagement in sanctioned racing, but from our part we were unable to find up to this moment any evidence that would corroborate his addition to Lest We Forget.

Regards,

Muzza