BRUSSELS – A 35-day manhunt in Belgium, which involved helicopters, armored vehicles, 400 soldiers and police officers, as well as reinforcements from Germany and the Netherlands, culminated on Sunday with the discovery of the body of a missing soldier with the far right left.
The body was found in a forest where soldier Jürgen Conings, 46, disappeared more than a month ago after threatening the government and virologists responsible for the country’s response to the coronavirus, federal prosecutors said. The soldier was armed with four rocket launchers, a submachine gun and a semi-automatic pistol that he had taken from an army depot.
The prosecutor said an initial investigation found the body to belong to Mr. Coning, a shooting instructor who was identified as a high-level national security threat in February. He is said to have shot himself, the authorities said.
In a letter to his girlfriend around the time he disappeared on May 17, Mr Conings wrote that he would not give up without a fight.
“The so-called political elite and now virologists decide how you and I should live,” he wrote. The virologists and the government “took everything away from us,” he said. “I don’t care if I die or not.”
The soldier’s disappearance came at a time of frustration in Belgium over the pandemic restrictions and the economic damage it caused. The country has had a relatively large number of Covid-19 deaths per capita and has imposed one of the longest lockdowns in Europe.
The far-right camp in Belgium has used the pandemic to spark public anger against the government. Already last spring, reports from state security authorities warned of the “occurrence of various right-wing extremist individuals and groups spreading conspiracy theories” on Covid-19.
Recognition…Belgian Federal Police
Mr Conings’ connections to right-wing extremists were investigated by the federal prosecutor’s office.
Before the soldier went missing, he went to the home of Marc Van Ranst, a top virologist active in Belgium’s Covid-19 response, and waited outside for him to return home from work. But dr. Van Ranst had taken his first afternoon off in 16 months and was already home.
It was not the first time that Mr. Conings had found Dr. Van Ranst, a prominent public health figure in Belgium, threatened. Dr. Van Ranst had also drawn the ire of the far right for speaking out against racism and xenophobia.
After the soldier disappeared, the Belgian authorities brought Dr. Van Ranst and his family to a safe place. When the body was discovered on Sunday, Dr. Van Ranst, who celebrated his 56th birthday in hiding, told the local news media that he hoped “to return to normal life soon”.
Although he said he had little pity on Mr. Conings, he expressed condolences to the soldier’s family.
Mr. Conings joined the military when he was 18. However, after making racist comments and threats, he lost his security clearance and was demoted last year, the Belgian authorities said.
Although the security services described the soldier as a “potentially dangerous extremist”, the Belgian Defense Minister said in a parliamentary hearing that after his demotion, Mr Conings had an access card to an ammunition depot.
Belgium is linguistically and politically divided between the affluent Dutch-speaking region of Flanders in the north and the poorer French-speaking Wallonia in the south. Everyone has their own government and political landscape, and centrist politicians face pressures from the far left and far right.
The challenge is particularly pronounced in Flanders, where Mr. Conings and Dr. Van Ranst as well as two right-wing parties are at home. One of them, Vlaams Belang, a Flemish ultra-nationalist anti-immigration party, has gained significant support in recent years.
After Mr. Conings went missing, 45,000 people joined a Facebook group called “Everyone United Behind Jürgen” before Facebook blocked them. On Telegram, the encrypted messaging app, around 3,300 users exchange solidarity messages in the group “As a man behind Jürgen!”.
But when the Facebook group called for demonstrations in support of Mr. Conings near his hometown a week later, only about 350 people turned up.
The long and unsuccessful manhunt had become a source of bitter jokes in a country the size of the state of Maryland. Last week police discovered a backpack of ammunition that they believe belonged to Mr. Conings.
“This place had been searched before, but the backpack might have been overlooked,” the federal prosecutor told local media.
