Was Belgium shooting a terror attack?

Officials investigating if the gunman had
been radicalised in prison

One-Minute Read

Officials are investigating reports that Herman had recently
been radicalised while he was in prison for drug offences. He
was out of prison on temporary release when the attack
occurred.

Police say Herman attacked the two female police officers from
behind, repeatedly slashing at them with a box-cutter, before
taking their service pistols and shooting them both dead.

He then fired on a parked car, killing 22-year-old University of
Liege student Cyriel Vangriecken, who was in the passenger seat of
his mother’s vehicle.

Liege prosecutor Philippe Dulieu told The Guardian that the gunman then “walked to
the Leonie de Waha school where he took a female cleaner
hostage”.

“Police intervened, he came out firing on the police officers,
wounding several, before he was killed,” Dulieu said. 

Two officers from the judicial brigade were shot in the arm, and
two counter-terrorism officers were shot in the leg, one with
serious injuries.

“The goal of the attacker was to target the police… it was aimed
at the state of Belgium. Four policemen were injured and taken to
the hospital,” Liege police chief Christian Beaupère said.

Why was attacker let out of prison?

Belgian authorities “sought to deflect questions on Wednesday
over the furlough of a convicted criminal, known to have been
radicalised in jail,” Reuters reports.

In and out of jail for a range of crimes since 2003,
“Herman found a path to violence that has heightened concerns
Europe’s prisons are incubators for radicalism”, the news agency
adds.