MAN DRIVES INTO CROWD IN BELGIUM, HELD

A man drove a car at speed into a crowded street in Antwerp on Thursday, forcing people to jump out of its path, a day after an assailant rammed a vehicle into crowds in central London, police said.

The car sped away in the Belgian port leaving no one injured, but prosecutors said police later arrested a man suspected of being the driver, naming him as Mohamed R, 39, a French national of North African origin.

Antwerp police found knives in the vehicle and a canister containing an unknown substance that bomb disposal officers were checking, Belgian federal prosecutors’ office said in a statement.

A French source later told Reuters that authorities there believed the suspect had not been trying to hit anyone, but was probably drunk and trying to escape a police check.

The source described the suspect as a Tunisian national living in France, known to police for common law crimes.

The car entered Antwerp’s busy De Meir shopping street in the morning. Patrolling soldiers tried to stop it but it went through a red light and drove off, said a police spokesman. The vehicle later came to a halt near Antwerp’s waterfront, police added.