Three dead ... minister takes blame

– Belgian authorities faced questions yesterday over why a prison inmate, believed to have been radicalised in jail, was let out for a day and used it to kill three people in Liege, as well as a former associate.

The justice minister, who oversees the prison service, said he felt “responsible” for Tuesday’s bloodshed in which two policewomen and a man were killed. The attacker was later shot dead by police.

“The question of whether this man should have been given leave is striking because he killed three completely innocent people with a wish to kill himself,” Koen Geens told RTBF radio. “I have to examine my own conscience.”

Interior Minister Jan Jambon said authorities were still examining the motives of the killer, identified by public media as Benjamin Herman, a 31-year-old drug dealer who was let out for two days on Monday to prepare for an eventual release in 2020.

A police source said Herman had shouted Allahu Akbar – the Muslim affirmation of faith – during a gunbattle with officers at a school in downtown Liege on Tuesday after killing his victims.

He had earlier knifed two female police officers to death, taken their pistols, shot dead a man in a car and taken two women hostage.

Unlike after other suspected lone wolf attacks in Europe, there has been no claim of responsibility by Islamic State. –