Fehriye Erdal’s escape causes crisis in Belgium
Güncelleme Tarihi:
Fehriye Erdal’s escape despite being under strict surveillance of the Belgian Secret Service, la Sûreté de l’État, was the cause of an embarrassing national scandal. The incident swept the Belgian press and occupied the headlines of every newspaper in the country.
Le Soir newspaper referred to Erdal’s escape as an ‘embarrassment to the SE’. Likening the incident to a 70s French comedy, the newspaper stated that Fehriye Erdal was able to escape first in an automobile, then on a bus, despite being under 24-hour surveillance of a total of 32 people and 8 vehicles, adding that this situation left Belgium in an embarrassing position.
Another newspaper, La Libre Belgique, reminded readers that this was ‘unfortunately not a film’. The most popular newspaper of the Flemmish part of Belgium, Des Standart, referred to the incident as ‘scandalous’.
It was revealed that Erdal and Musa Asaoğlu initially got into an Opel Kadett, and switched to a bus for the rest of the journey. Le Soir newspaper wrote that “this is the oldest most common escape strategy of terrorist organisations”. It was stated that following a fast police chase, Erdal and Asaoğlu got out of the car as the traffic lights turned red, and mounted a local bus. It was later discovered that Erdal had lived in the centre of Brussels for the last 6 years. Throughout this time, the Belgian Secret Service had been watching her through 24-hour surveillance cameras from a house across the road but had lately been unable to do so because the surveillance system was not working due to ‘technical problems’.