‘Terrorist’ kills two policewomen and passer-by in Belgium

A man killed two policewomen and a bystander in the Belgian city of Liege on Tuesday before being shot dead in a gunbattle at a school in what is described as a terrorist attack.

The man was named by public broadcaster RTBF as a 36-year-old petty criminal who had been let out on day-release from a local prison on Monday. It said investigators were looking into whether he converted to Islam and had been radicalised in jail.

A public prosecutor told a news conference that the man set upon the policewomen from behind with a knife, described as a box-cutter by RTBF, around 10:30 a.m. (0830 GMT) on a boulevard in the centre of Belgium’s third city, near the German border.

Having stabbed them, prosecutor Philippe Dulieu said, the man then seized one of their handguns and shot both women dead before walking down the street and shooting dead a 22-year-old man who was sitting in the passenger seat of a parked car.

The man then made his way into a high school where he took a woman employee hostage, triggering a major intervention by armed police. Pupils were moved to safety as a gunbattle broke out that sent people in the street racing for cover. Several police were wounded before the attacker was finally killed.

Reuters