Terrorism inquiry into attack by prisoner on day release who was later shot dead by police

Belgian investigators have opened a terrorism inquiry after a prisoner on day release shot dead two police officers and a passerby in the centre of Liège before being killed in a shootout.

The man, named as Benjamin Herman, 31, approached the two female officers from behind and repeatedly slashed at them with a boxcutter, or Stanley knife, as they were checking parking meters on Tuesday morning.

He then took their service revolvers and shot them dead before turning his fire on a parked car and killing Cyriel Vangriecken, 22, a student at the University of Liège, who was in the passenger seat of his mother’s Ford Fiesta.

Philippe Dulieu, the prosecutor in Liège, said the assailant 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. The pupils at the school had been evacuated by staff via a back door.

Two counter-terrorism officers were shot in the leg, leaving one seriously injured, and two police officers from the judicial brigade were hit in the arm.

The Liège police chief, Christian Beaupère, said: “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. One of them has already left the hospital, while another has a severe injury to the femoral artery. He is in a dangerous condition.”

Belgium remains on high alert after a string of attacks including twin suicide bombings in Brussels in 2016 claimed by Islamic State.

Witnesses said the attacker in Liège was dressed in black and was carrying a rucksack. Footage aired by the Belgian broadcaster RTBF showed him chanting “Allahu Akbar” – God is greatest, in Arabic – as he walked through the city.

One witness, who was in an office overlooking the scene, told the French broadcaster LCI that the assailant could be clearly heard. He said: “He shot everything that moved. But people did not know what was going on at first. The white Ford Fiesta stopped. The passenger was shot close up.

“My cleaning lady shouted an insult at him. I threw objects down to knock him out, but I didn’t hit him. He looked around and fixed his weapon.”

The Belgian prime minister, Charles Michel, said Herman had been indirectly mentioned in state security reports on radicalisation but he was not on a watchlist. “Different services considered that, based on the elements they had, there was no reason to give him such a qualification,” he said.

Michel described the attacks as “cowardly and blind violence”. He tweeted: “All our support for the victims and their loved ones. We are following the situation with the security services and the crisis centre.”

Herman, who was serving a 17-year sentence in Marche prison for drugs and theft convictions, was given 36 hours’ leave on Monday evening to stay with his grandmother in the town of On, near Marche-en-Famenne.

Since being imprisoned in 2003 he had completed 11 one-day release permits and 13 two-day periods of leave without problems. Investigators are examining whether he could have been radicalised in jail.

The justice minister, Koen Geens, said the attacker was a repeat offender who had been due for release in two years’ time. “At the moment there is very little consistent we can say about [radicalisation]”, he said. “In any case, he is not a clearcut case – on the contrary. He certainly was not someone who could clearly be qualified as radicalised. Otherwise he would have been known as such by all services.”

Local media linked Herman to the murder overnight of a heroin dealer, Michael Wilmet, 30, who had been released from prison a few months earlier, and the armed robbery of a jewellery store in his home town, Rochefort. A spokesman for the federal police declined to comment on the allegations.

Belgium’s threat-level rating has not been raised from “unlikely”.

The two murdered police officers were named as Lucile Garcia, 53, who had recently become a grandmother, and Soraya Belkacemi, 45, a mother to 13-year-old twins. Garcia was married last month to a fellow police officer, who was said to have been at the scene shortly after the shooting.

Theresa May said the UK stood “resolute with our Belgian allies against terror”. Emmanuel Macron, the French president, condemned the “terrible attack” and expressed the “solidarity of the French people”. </s> A Belgian teenager is suspected of murdering a city mayor by slitting his throat in a cemetery on Monday night (11 September).

Alfred Gadenne, the mayor of Mouscron, a town in western Belgium, was found around 8pm (7pm BST) with a slashed throat in the graveyard opposite his home. He was attacked by an armed man when he went to close the cemetery's gate, police said.

An 18-year-old man has been arrested and will appear before a judge on Tuesday afternoon.

Belgian broadcaster Notélé claimed that the suspect killed Gadenne as revenge for firing his father from his position as a civil servant two years ago. The man reportedly became depressed after losing his job and killed himself earlier this year. This report has not been confirmed by police.

Belgian media described 71-year-old Gadenne as a popular mayor who personally opened and closed the graveyard each night.

Politicians, including Prime Minister Charles Michel, paid tribute to the mayor on social media.

Michel wrote that he had learned with "dread of the brutal death of Alfred Gadenne".

"All my thoughts are with his family and loved ones," he added.

Paul Magnette, the mayor of Charleroi and the former Minister-President of the French-speaking region Wallonia, said he was "horrified" to hear about Gadenne's "assassination". </s> BERLIN
• A far-right German MP was seriously injured in a "politically motivated" gang attack in the north of the country, police said yesterday.

Mr Frank Magnitz, leader in Bremen of the anti-immigration populist party Alternative for Germany (AfD), was assaulted in the city centre on Monday afternoon.

"Given the victim's work, we believe that this is a politically motivated act," the police said.

The AfD party published a photograph of Mr Magnitz unconscious on a hospital bed, his face bleeding and swollen with a gash on his forehead.

It said three masked men had carried out the attack.

"They hit him with a piece of wood until he was unconscious and then kicked him on the ground," a statement from the party said, adding that a construction worker had intervened to stop the assault. "Today is a dark day for democracy in Germany."

AfD leader Joerg Meuthen tweeted that Mr Magnitz was "beaten almost to death" in a "cowardly and sickening" attack.

Mr Johannes Kahrs, an MP from the Social Democrats, junior partners in the ruling coalition, said that "violence is never acceptable" and that "extremism in any form is rubbish".

Mr Cem Ozdemir of the opposition Greens party said he hoped those responsible could be "found and convicted soon" and that "nothing justifies violence".

"Those who fight hate with hate only allow hate to win in the end," added the politician, who is of Turkish origin.

Last week, an explosive device detonated in a rubbish bin damaged an AfD office in Saxony. Three suspects were detained.

And last weekend in Lower Saxony, the home of a local AfD politician was targeted with graffiti while a party office was attacked with a paint bomb.

The AfD entered Germany's Parliament with almost 13 per cent of the vote in September 2017, making it the strongest opposition party in the Bundestag Lower House.

The party is expected to make gains in European elections in May and three regional polls in the former communist east later this year. </s> LIEGE, Belgium – A knife-wielding man stabbed two police officers Tuesday in the Belgian city of Liege, stole their weapons and shot them and a bystander dead in an attack that prosecutors fear could be terror-related.

The man, who was later killed by police, approached two police officers from behind carrying a knife and stabbed them several times, said Philippe Dulieu, spokesman for the Liege prosecutor’s office.

“He then took their weapons. He used the weapons on the officers, who died,” Dulieu told reporters.

Dulieu said the attacker then shot dead a 22-year-old man in a vehicle parked nearby, and took a woman hostage in a school close to where the shooting took place outside a city cafe.

“Liege police intervened. He came out firing at police, wounding a number of them, notably in the legs. He was shot dead,” the spokesman said.

A senior official at the federal prosecutor’s office told The Associated Press that “there are indications it could be a terror attack.”

Despite this, Belgium’s crisis center said it saw no reason to raise the country’s terror threat alert for now.

When asked about the report that the attack was terror-related, Liege city hall Michel Firket told the AP: “I know nothing formal about that. The police is doing its investigation. There are no formal conclusions.”

A spokeswoman for the city mayor’s office, Laurence Comminette, told the AP that the children at the school were all safe.

Prime Minister Charles Michel said only that “there was a serious incident.” He was rushing to the crisis center to get more information.

Yves Stevens of Belgium’s federal crisis center said that security in Liege is now under control, and that there was no reason yet to raise the national terror threat level.

“There is absolutely no confirmation yet that the incident is terror-related,” Stevens told the AP.

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. </s> The incident occurred at around 10:30 a.m. (4:30 a.m. ET) when an assailant stabbed two policemen from behind before stealing their service weapons and using them on the officers, Liege Prosecutor Philippe Dulieu said at a news conference on Tuesday.

After killing the two police officers, the attacker continued walking through the street and opened fire on a parked vehicle, fatally wounding the driver inside, Dulieu added.

According to the prosecutor, the suspect then took refuge in a local high school where he held a woman hostage. When police intervened, the man opened fire, injuring several other officers, before he was shot dead.

It is not yet clear what the attacker's motive may have been, a spokesperson from the Liege prosecutor's office told CNN earlier.

Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel said he and the government send their thoughts to the victims and their families. The Belgian Royal Palace also tweeted its sympathies following the shooting. "Our thoughts are with the victims of this horrible act. Courage to their loved ones," the tweet read. According to CNN affiliate VTM, Michel and King Philippe of Belgium are on their way to Liege. Belgian Interior Minister Jan Jambon said on Twitter that the country's crisis center had been monitoring the situation. The crisis center said that the students in the school were safe and that none had been injured. A police officer speaks with parents of children at a nearby high school. Liege resident Didier Deflem filmed a video allegedly showing special intervention police units shooting at the Liege attacker in front of the Waha high school. Deflem told CNN: "Police made us enter the building to protect us. The PAB (Peloton anti-banditisme, a special intervention unit of the city of Liege) intervened. The man wanted to run out and he was shot down. That's all I saw. We're still in shock." Pierre Etienne Dit Pave, who teaches French language classes nearby, told CNN he was first alerted to the attack by a "commotion in the street" and went out to investigate. "At one point a policeman told me to go inside. I went back to the classroom and locked the door for a while," he said. "We heard a lot of shots. We didn't see anything because we were locked in the room. We were waiting for police to give us the clearing." In this grab made from a video obtained on the Twitter account of Victor Jay (@victorj_fr), police and emergency vehicles block a nearby crossroads. Liege is Belgium's third-largest city, after Brussels and Antwerp, according to the national tourist office. For centuries, it has been an important cultural and industrial center for the country. In 2011, Liege was the scene of a grenade and gun attack that left at least 5 dead and injured more than 100. </s> BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The murder of a Belgian city mayor whose throat was cut in a cemetery on Monday has shocked the country, and the country’s prime minister expressed “horror” at the death of the retired national lawmaker.

Citing the public prosecutor, Belgian media said Alfred Gadenne, 71, the conservative mayor of Mouscron, an industrial town of 57,000 just across the border from the northern French city of Lille, was found dead in a graveyard close to his home where he acted as caretaker and locked the gates each night.

Local news service SudInfo, citing unnamed sources, said a suspect had handed himself in to police and that the motive was unclear. The case was handed to a local prosecutor rather than to national counter-terrorism investigators.

“I have learned with horror of the brutal death of Alfred Gadenne,” Prime Minister Charles Michel, a liberal, said on Twitter. “All my thoughts are with his family and friends.”

Among the many others offering condolences was Martine Aubry, the former French Socialist party leader and long-time mayor of metropolitan Lille.

Philippe Courard, president of the parliament for Belgium’s French-speaking south, tweeted: “Terrifying. What kind of world are we living in?” </s> BRUSSELS: Belgian police arrested a suspect after a local mayor had his throat slashed in a graveyard, authorities said Tuesday as they probed a murder that shocked the country. Alfred Gadenne, 71, was found dead on Monday in a cemetery where he opened and locked the gates every day, near his home in Mouscron, near the French border. Local media said the suspect is an 18-year-old who attacked the mayor to avenge his father, a former town employee who was sacked and committed suicide in 2015. The case sparked strong emotion on Tuesday in Belgium. Prime Minister Charles Michel on Twitter said he learned “with alarm” the death of Gadenne, who he said was widely liked by all. Mouscron, a town of about 60,000 people, is known for its pubs and nightlife that attracts revellers from nearby France. </s> BRUSSELS — Belgian authorities on Tuesday were questioning a teenager suspected of killing a city mayor in a cemetery overnight by slashing his throat with a box cutter.

Alfred Gadenne, the mayor of Mouscron in western Belgium, was found dead early Monday evening in a cemetery near his home. Gadenne, 71, opened and closed the graveyard each day.

A spokesperson for the regional Crown Prosecutor's office, Frederic Bariseau, told reporters that police received a telephone call just before 8 p.m. telling them about attack, and that the caller identified himself as the perpetrator.

When police and ambulance workers arrived they found the mayor dead with his throat slashed. The 18-year-old suspect had a box cutter.

"He identified himself as the caller. He presented himself to police and offered no resistance. He was standing in front of the cemetery waiting for the police," said Bariseau, who described the young man as "very calm."

Bariseau declined to name the suspect or discuss a motive for the attack.

But when asked about Belgian media reports that the teenager's father committed suicide after being fired from his city hall job two years ago, Bariseau acknowledged that "some of the explanations that have been going around concern the death of his father."

He said the suspect would be undergoing a psychiatric assessment.

Prime Minister Charles Michel said in a tweet he had learned with "dread of the brutal death of Alfred Gadenne. All my thoughts are with his family and loved ones." </s> BERLIN : A far-right German MP was seriously injured in a "politically motivated" gang attack in the north of the country, the police said yesterday.

Mr Frank Magnitz, leader in Bremen of the anti-immigration populist party Alternative for Germany (AfD), was assaulted in the city centre on Monday afternoon.

"Given the victim's work, we believe this is a politically motivated act," the police said.

AfD published a photo of Mr Magnitz unconscious on a hospital bed, his face bleeding and swollen with a gash on his forehead. It said three masked men had carried out the attack.

"They hit him with a piece of wood until he was unconscious and then kicked him on the ground," a statement from the party said, adding that a construction worker had intervened to stop the assault.

"Today is a dark day for democracy in Germany."

AfD leader Joerg Meuthen tweeted that Mr Magnitz was "beaten almost to death" in a "cowardly and sickening" attack.

Mr Johannes Kahrs, an MP from the Social Democrats, junior partners in the ruling coalition, said "violence is never acceptable" and "extremism in any form is rubbish". He wished Mr Magnitz a quick recovery.

Mr Cem Ozdemir of the opposition Greens party said he hoped those responsible could be "found and convicted soon" and that, even against a far-right party, "nothing justifies violence".

"Those who fight hate with hate only allow hate to win in the end," said the politician of Turkish origin.

Last week, an explosive device detonated in a rubbish bin damaged an AfD office in Saxony. Three suspects were detained.

And last weekend in Lower Saxony, the home of a local AfD politician was targeted with graffiti and a party office was attacked with a paint bomb.
Workers' Party of Belgium representative Raoul Hedebouw gets stabbed in the thigh, moments before holding a speech in Liège, Belgium. The presumed assailant is arrested.