Inmate on leave kills 3 people in Belgium
Two police officers, one bystander die in attack
LIÈGE, Belgium — A knifewielding prison inmate on a 48-hour leave stabbed two police officers Tuesday in the Belgian city of Liege, seized their service weapons and shot them and a bystander to death before being mowed down by a group of officers, setting off a major terror investigation into the country’s most savage assault since 2016 suicide attacks.
Prime Minister Charles Michel acknowledged the assailant had a lengthy criminal record that included theft, assault and drug offenses.
Tuesday’s attack happened outside a cafe in the eastern city of Liège when the assailant crept up on the two female officers from behind and stabbed them repeatedly. “He then took their weapons. He used the weapons on the officers, who died,” the Liège prosecutor’s spokesman, Philippe Dulieu, told reporters.
Dulieu said the attacker then shot and killed a 22-year-old teacher in a vehicle that was leaving a parking lot outside a nearby high school. He then took two women hostage inside the school before confronting police massed outside. “He came out firing at police. He was shot dead,” the spokesman said.
Justice Minister Koen Geens described the assailant as a repeat offender who had been incarcerated since 2003 and was due for release in two years.
Police Chief Christian Beaupere said “the goal of the attacker was to target the police.”
He identified the slain officers as 45-year-old Lucile Garcia and 53-year-old Soraya Belkacemi. He said Belkacemi was the mother of 13-year-old twin daughters who earlier lost their father, also a police officer. Four other officers were wounded in the attack.
Belgian media identified the suspect as Benjamin Herman, a Belgian national born in 1982.
Interior Minister Jan Jambon said authorities also were investigating the killing on Monday of an old acquaintance of the assailant and said there could be a link. “It is a serious hypothesis,” he told the VRT network.