A night shop owner was killed during a robbery in Ixelles in the early hours of Tuesday. Several people forced their way into the premises on rue de la Paix at around two in the morning. The man who ran the shop with his wife, aged 67, died. His wife was tied up and shut in the cellar, freed herself, found him, and called the police.
The Brussels public prosecutor has opened an investigation and handed it to the federal judicial police. The office said the exact circumstances have not been established. What was taken, if anything, is not yet clear, and no arrests have been announced.
Nothing about the wider pattern should be read into a single case, and the investigation has barely begun. What can be said is why this category of business is the one that keeps appearing in this category of crime. A night shop trades in the hours when everything around it is shut, holds cash because a share of its customers pay in cash, and is typically run by one or two people who are often the owners. Those three facts sit together, and they are the reason the trade is a target rather than any particular failure by the people in it.