On 12 April 2006, around 16:30, Joe Van Holsbeeck, a 17-year-old Belgian high school student, was approached by two youths of about his own age in the crowded main hall of Brussels-Central railway station during afternoon rush hour. According to reports, the pair initially asked for directions before attempting to take his MP3 player. When Van Holsbeeck resisted without violence, he was stabbed seven times by one of the two assailants. He was taken to hospital, where he died of his injuries later that day. The two suspects fled the station, and Belgian media initially and erroneously reported them as being of Moroccan descent.
Despite hundreds of people being present at the busy station, no one intervened to stop the attack or intercept the fleeing suspects. Police subsequently interviewed thousands of commuters. Both suspects, and possibly the elder brother of one of them, had been captured on CCTV footage in front of the station. On 19 April 2006, a week after the murder, police released a description and an identikit drawing of the two principal suspects along with security-camera footage. According to HLN.be, the delay in releasing this material was reportedly linked to concerns about aggravating racial tensions or triggering a witch-hunt against the North African community, to which the suspects were initially believed to belong, though this was not confirmed by the state prosecutor's office. The quality of the station's own security cameras was debated, with some investigators calling the footage too poor to be useful, a claim Belgian authorities denied; separate, higher-quality CCTV footage from a subway station and other sources was later released to generate public tips.
One of the perpetrators, a 16½-year-old from Poland, was arrested on or around 24–25 April 2006 after being identified by his secondary school teachers. The other suspect, also from Poland and identified as the alleged murderer, had fled the country and was arrested in Suwałki, Poland, on 27 April 2006. Belgian broadcaster VRT reported both suspects were of Romani descent, which may explain the earlier misidentification as North African. The alleged murderer, identified as Adam G., was extradited to Belgium in 2007 and, in September 2008, was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Belgian authorities intended for him to serve part of his sentence in Poland to ensure a longer minimum term under Polish law.
The killing, notable for occurring in a crowded public space during rush hour, produced a significant public and political reaction in Belgium. Then-Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt and the Belgian royal family contacted the victim's family, and the case was referenced by Cardinal Danneels in an Easter mass. Concerns were raised that the case, particularly given the initial misidentification of the suspects' ethnicity, could be exploited politically or fuel support for the far-right Vlaams Belang party. Van Holsbeeck was buried in a private Catholic prayer service on 20 April 2006. A silent, non-partisan march through Brussels on 23 April 2006 drew an estimated 80,000 participants. In 2013, a street in Haren, Brussels, was named in his memory.
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