BRUSSELS (AP) — The police chief in the Belgian city where a prison inmate on 48-hour leave grabbed the service weapons of two officers and then fatally shot them and a bystander has identified the slain officers, one of whom had twin daughters now orphaned.
Liege Police Chief Christian Beaupere named the two female 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.
Belgian media have identified the suspect in Tuesday’s attack as Benjamin Herman, a Belgian national born in 1982, though in keeping with standard procedure authorities declined to confirm his identity.
Prime Minister Charles Michel says Herman was indirectly mentioned in state security reports on radicalization, but did not have his name on a list maintained by an anti-terror assessment group. The suspect was shot dead by police.
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7:00 p.m.
Belgian Prime Minister Michel says the convict who killed two police officers and a bystander in the city of Liege was indirectly mentioned in state security reports on radicalization.
Michel said Benjamin Herman, who was killed by police after he shot the three victims with the female officers’ service weapons, appeared in the security reports “in notes that did not primarily target him, but others or other situations.”
The prime minister says Herman did not his name on a list maintained by an anti-terror assessment group.
Michel said: “Different services considered that, based on the elements they had, there was no reason to give him such a qualification.”
He says the slayings will involve, at least initially, “an investigation for terrorism.”
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5:20 p.m.
The police chief in the Belgian city of Liege says that a knife-wielding man stabbed two female officers before taking their handguns and shooting them both dead.
Christian Beaupere said the attacker, whom he did not name, also wounded four other officers.
He said “the goal of the attacker was to target the police.”
He said the policewomen were aged 45 and 53, the latter a mother of twins. The attacker also killed a passer-by before police fatally shot the gunman.
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1:20 p.m.
Belgian prosecutors say the attacker in Liege disarmed police and used their weapons in a shooting rampage.
Spokesman Philippe Dulieu said the man approached two police officers from behind carrying a knife and stabbed them several times.
Dulieu said that the attacker “then took their weapons. He used the weapons on the officers, who died.”
He said the attacker then shot dead a 22-year-old man in a nearby vehicle. The attacker was later killed by police.
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1:15 p.m.
An official at the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office has told The Associated Press that “there are indications” that the shooting in the eastern city of Liege could be a terror attack.
The investigation into the shooting, which left two police officers and a bystander dead, has been taken over by the office which usually deals with extremist attacks and a senior official said “there are indications it could be a terror attack.” The attacker was later killed by police.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly about an ongoing investigation.
–By Raf Casert in Brussels.
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12:50 p.m.
A crisis center official in Belgium says that the situation around the shooting site in Liege is fully safe and has added that there is no reason to increase the terror threat level.
Yves Stevens of the crisis center told the Associated Press that “there is absolutely no confirmation yet that the incident is terror-related.”
A gunman has killed three people, including two police officers, in Liege before being fatally shot by police.
Belgian police and military have been on alert since suicide bombers killed 32 people at the Brussels airport and subway system in 2016.
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12:10 p.m.
An official in the Belgian city of Liege has told The Associated Press that a gunman has killed three people. The official says that the attacker has also been killed.
Michel Firket from Liege city hall told The Associated Press that “beyond the attacker, who was shot, there are three dead, two police officials and a passer-by.”
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11:40 a.m.
Belgian media say a gunman has shot dead two police officers and a bystander in the eastern city of Liege. Two other people have been wounded.
State broadcaster RTBF said the shooting happened Tuesday near a cafe on the Boulevard d’Avroy.
The gunman fled the scene, taking a cleaning woman hostage at a nearby school, but he was later “neutralized,” RTBF reported, quoting police and fire services.
There was no immediate indication that the incident was terror-related.
Video posted on Twitter by a person claiming to be a witness showed people running in the area. About six gunshots could be heard.
Belgian police and military have been on alert since suicide bombers killed 32 people at the Brussels airport and subway system in 2016.
