Shootout rattles Belgium city
Man in suspected terror attack kills three after seizing police weapons
LIEGE: A knife-wielding man stabbed two female police officers in the Belgian city of Liege, stole their service weapons and shot them and a bystander dead in an attack that prosecutors fear could be terror-related.
Justice Minister Koen Geens said the assailant, who was later killed by police, was released from prison on a two-day leave Monday.
Geens described him as a multiple repeat offender who had been incarcerated since 2003.
Liege Police Chief Christian Beaupere said at a news conference that the slain officers were 45-yearsold and 53-years-old, the latter the mother of twins.
Four other officers were wounded in the attack, one of them seriously with a severed femoral artery.
State broadcaster RTBF identified the suspect as Benjamin Herman.
Herman, a Belgian national born in 1982, had a criminal record that included theft, assault and drug offenses, RTBF reported.
It was also reported that the gunman is on a police watchlist for contacts with Islamist extremists.
However, the federal prosecutor’s office declined to comment.
Earlier, Liege prosecutors’ spokesman Philippe Dulieu said the man crept up on the two officers from behind carrying a knife and stabbed them several times.
“He then took their weapons. He used the weapons on the officers, who died,” Dulieu told reporters.
The two police handguns had a total of 17 bullets.
Dulieu said the attacker then shot dead a 22-year-old man in a vehicle that was just leaving a parking place outside a nearby high school.
The attacker then took a woman hostage inside the school.
“Liege police intervened. He came out firing at police, wounding a number of them, notably in the legs. He was shot dead,” the spokesman said.
A senior official at the federal prosecutor’s office said that “there are indications it could be a terror attack”.
Despite this, Belgium’s crisis centre said it saw no reason to raise the country’s terror threat alert for now.
When asked about the report that the attack was terror-related, Liege city hall Michel Firket spokesman said: “I know nothing formal about that.
“The police is doing its investigation. There are no formal conclusions.” — AP