Herzele The car, which five masked gangsters used in the armed robbery Monday night at restaurant Hof van Oranje on the border of Balegem and Zottegem, was briefly previously stolen at a farm in the Herzeelse borough Borsbeke. The car was dinsdagvoormiddag found on the French border. “Completely burned out”, says owner, Paul De Vuyst (69).
Paul De Vuyst noticed the theft of his Mitsubishi Pajero Tuesday morning. “I found the car not in the garage at the rear of the farmhouse stood. Because the car used by four people, I called them all. But no one of them was with the car left,” says Paul. The farmer went in, but report to the police. “That was for 9 hours already. And at 10.30 am I got to hear that my car was found. That’s the good news, because he was completely burned out. It turned out that gangsters my car had used for a robbery at restaurant Hof van Oranje.”
Long driveway
Paul finds it strange that the gangsters just with him into a car to steal. “The car is at the back on my yard, in a garage. Of on the street, you can the garage not to see. You will need all through the forty metre long driveway next to our house, to the back of our yard. Moreover, it was also dark when the thieves crossed. For the same money was one of them in the cesspool trouble. Someone needs that men have tipped. It can’t be otherwise”, remember Paul.
Inside job
That the gangsters knew that there on the upper floor a safe was, the presumption increases that the robbery is an inside job. But that doesn Eliane Feliers, the 62-year-old manager of ‘t Hof van Oranje, not to have said. She runs meanwhile, as good and as bad as it can its restaurant further. “The robbery haunted still by my head, but we need to continue hey. They can’t rap small,” says the brave woman.
That the car that the gangsters move, found is, they don’t know. “I’ve got a lot of questions, but get no answers. During the robbery, the police will be alerted by a passer-by so the emergency services are quickly on the spot. I would like to know the name of that person, but apparently not. I would that man want to thank, because he has saved my life. Who knows what these gangsters else with me and my waitress had been up to”, muses Eliane.
