Post date: Oct 26, 2012 1:29:17 PM
Witness recalls course of events of the evening British oil executive Nicholas Mockfordwas shot and killed in front of his wife.
BRUSSELS, BELGIUM (OCTOBER 15, 2012) (VTM) - The day after British oil executive Nicholas Mockford was shot dead in Brussels, an anonymous witness told Flemish television how he tried to help and revive the victim.
Belgian prosecutors are investigating the murder of Mockford shot and killed in front of his wife as they walked to their car after dinner at an Italian restaurant in Brussels.
Mockford, who worked for U.S. oil giant ExxonMobil, was shot on October 14 after a Sunday evening meal, but prosecutors declined to say if they were investigating the case as a possible contract killing.A man who lives close to where the couple had parked their car told Flemish TV VTM on October 15 how he tried to help Mockford before he died.
"I heard a two noises… I don't quite remember. Something like' tak tak'. It sounded odd and I went outside to see what was going on. A woman was lying on the footpath across the street. She cried 'Help, Help'. Another person was lying on the street, next to the car," said the man, who declined to be give his name.
He said he tried to revive Mockford.
"I stayed with the two people. At a certain moment he stopped breathing. I tried to reanimate him. He regained breath but at a certain moment he lost consciousness. Again I tried to reanimate him. That's when the ambulance arrived," the witness said.
The man said he saw bullet wounds on Mockford's body when paramedics opened his shirt.
"I saw that when paramedics cut his cloths open. He was shot in the chest and in the shoulder. I didn't see more. Actually he was bleeding from his head too. I didn't see more because I didn't dare to move him," this man added.
Police initially believed Mockford had been killed in a failed car hijacking, though the couple's Lexus sports utility vehicle had not been taken after the shooting.
Marcello Minacapelli, the owner of the Italian restaurant said the couple, who were not regulars, had left at about 10 p.m., but he had not seen the incident.
Brussels prosecutors said they were not prepared to comment further on the details or circumstances of the case until the perpetrators were caught.
Mockford, 59 was a manager within the chemicals arm of ExxonMobil and had worked over a period of 38 years in Britain, Belgium and Singapore.
ExxonMobil Belgium confirmed he had worked as a department head at its office in Machelen, on the outskirts of Brussels.
Britain's foreign office confirmed that a British national had been killed and that it was providing consular assistance.