3 DEAD IN CITY TERROR ATTACK
Two women cops among nut’s victims
A KNIFE-wielding loon stabbed two police officers in Liege, Belgium – then stole their weapons before shooting them and a bystander dead.
The man approached two female officers from behind while carrying a knife and stabbed them several times.
It was reported he had shouted: “Allahu Akbar!” as he shot and killed the two officers and a civilian.
After carrying out three brutal murders, the attacker took a female cleaner hostage in a nearby high school.
Footage later shows him running out of the school with two guns blazing before he was shot dead in the street by special forces.
Several officers were injured in the battle.
The man, who is said to have been on a day release from a nearby prison, had approached the officers at around 10.30am, slashed their throats.
He was last night named as Benjamin Herman, 36, an alleged Muslim convert who’d been radicalised in jail.
The victims were named as police officers Lucile Garcia, 45, and Soraya Belkacemi, 53, and 22-year-old Cyril Vangriecken, who was shot dead while sitting in a parked car.
A senior official at the federal prosecutor’s office last night said “there are indications it could be a terror attack”.
However, Belgium’s crisis centre said it saw no reason to raise the country’s terror threat alert, just for now.
When asked about a report that the attack was terror-related, Liege city hall official Michel Firket said: “Police are investigating. There are no formal conclusions.”
A spokeswoman for the city mayor’s office, Laurence Comminette, told reporters that the children at the school were all safe.
Prime Minister Charles Michel said only that “there was a serious incident” as he rushed to the crisis centre.
Yves Stevens, of Belgium’s federal crisis centre, said security in Liege was under control, and there was no reason yet to raise the national terror threat level.