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> Soldiers have shot dead a man in Brussels after he charged troops with a knife in what authorities said was a terror attack.

The man twice shouted "Allahu akbar", Arabic for "God is great", as he charged the soldiers, said Esther Natus, a spokeswoman for the federal prosecutor's office.

"We do consider it a terror attack," Ms Natus said.

She did not identify the man or confirm whether he was known to police, saying only that "the suspect is dead" and one of the soldiers was slightly wounded.

Police secure a scene in downtown Brussels after a reported knife attack on Belgian Army soldiers this evening. Picture: AP

Brussels mayor Philippe Close said three soldiers came under attack and one had been taken to hospital.

Federal Police spokesman Jonathan Pfunde said the attacker had been "neutralised" and Belgium's anti-terror crisis centre tweeted that the situation was "under control".

"All our support is with our soldiers," prime minister Charles Michel said via Twitter.

"Our security services remain on alert. We are following the situation closely."

Associated Press television images showed police had sealed off a main street near the Grand Place, a central square that is a popular tourist site.

Thomas da Silva Rosa, who lives near where the incident took place on Boulevard Emile Jacquemain, said he saw the attacker lying in the street in the aftermath.

"I live right in front of the station. It was already blocked by police at the scene and there was a man lying on the ground. The police said he had been shot by soldiers," said the public affairs consultant.

"He was lying on the ground, appeared dead."

Belgium has been on high alert since suicide bombers killed 32 people in attacks on March 22 2016, on Brussels' main airport and subway system.

Soldiers and extra police have been deployed at public buildings and around large gatherings for more than a year. </s> Police in Detroit say they are tracking a possible serial killer who they believe has raped and murdered at least three women in the last three months.

Detroit Police Chief James Craig made the revelation Wednesday after a third victim was found earlier in the day.

According to Craig, police are searching for a man who is targeting sex workers in their 50s. All the victims were found in vacant homes.

Craig said police are reaching out to sex workers in the area for tips, but that many are reluctant to speak to officers. He urged any sex workers in the area to “use extreme caution” when entering vacant homes. He also asked people who live near the crime scenes to reach out to police if they see any suspicious activity.

“We’re not trying to create fear in the community,” Craig said. “But it is a pause for concern for the sex workers who are out in our community engaged in sex acts. Right now it seems the suspects is targeting sex workers who engage in illicit sexual acts in vacant dwellings.”

Mel Baggett, the president of Night Angels, a Christian nonprofit that works with sex-trafficking victims in the Detroit area, says the women being targeted are particularly vulnerable.

“Because society looks at them in such a minimalist way, they are targets for hate crimes, beatings, assaults and rape,” he says. “These men say ‘Oh, she’s just a hooker, just a person on the street,’ so these people are victimized all the time.”

The first victim was found on March 19 on Detroit’s east side. Craig said that police discovered the decomposing body of a woman in a vacant building, but initially believed she had died of an overdose. Craig said on May 20 the medical examiner determined that the woman had actually died from blunt force trauma.

Then on May 24, police discovered the body of a second woman partially clothed in a vacant home. While the medical examiner has still not determined her cause of death, Craig said aspects of the crime are similar to the first, so there was “cause for concern.”

Then on Wednesday, a third woman’s body was discovered in a vacant building in the same area by a fellow sex worker. According to Craig, based on the investigation “It appears that this is a suspect who is targeting sex workers.”

He added he would not give further details as to why police believe the three deaths were linked, but said evidence from the investigation is consistent with just one suspect having committed the three murders. As of Thursday, police have not identified or released photos of the victims.

Detroit ranks as one of America’s most dangerous cities, with 267 killings in 2017, according to the FBI. The Detroit Police Department has also struggled with staffing shortages in recent years.

Baggett says news of a potential serial killer has brought attention to women on the streets of Detroit. But, there needs to be more awareness of how women end up in sex work in the first place to prevent this kind of violence from happening.

“This case is getting notoriety because police pieced it together, it could very well be a serial killer,” he says. “But we see this ugliness all the time, our friends getting assaulted, murdered, raped, robbed… The Detroit police are becoming enlightened to these issues and changing their perspective, but society in general are not.” </s> A Belgian policeman fired the bullet that killed a two-year-old girl during a high-speed chase of a van transporting migrants in Belgium last week, prosecutors confirmed Tuesday.

Prosecutors announced the results of the probe into the death of Mawda Shawri, after officials said Friday that she had died from a bullet wound in the incident May 17 but did not say who had fired it.

The prosecutor's office in the southern town of Mons said the investigation showed only one bullet had been fired "during a dangerous high-speed chase over 60 kilometers (36 miles)" and traced it to a police officer.

"The officer who opened fire is overcome and disconsolate. He neither wanted nor could have imagined this," prosecutor general Ignacio De la Serna told reporters, according to the Belga news agency.

"It's a tragic event that everyone regrets, including the police officers," he added.

The police officer who fired the shot had appeared before a judge, who is reviewing all the evidence before deciding whether to press any charges, the prosecutor said.

The toddler died in an ambulance on her way to hospital.

The lawyer for the girl's family, Olivier Stein, told AFP that the prosecutors could have avoided confusion over how the girl died if they had questioned his clients directly.

But instead, he said, they had "treated them more like offenders than victims."

Stein said judicial authorities had told him the bullet was fired "at a moment when the van was traveling at 90 kilometers per hour" as police squad cars moved beside it. </s> Belgian police have arrested a man after he tried to drive into a crowd at high speed in a shopping area of Antwerp, the city’s police chief said.

At 11am a car drove at pedestrians walking along the Meir, Antwerp’s largest shopping street, and “people had to jump to the side” to avoid the vehicle, said Serge Muyters, the Antwerp police chief.

The driver was arrested after a chase in the city centre.

Muyters said the suspect was a man of north African origin, who was wearing a camouflage uniform.

Belgian prosecutors said the arrested man was a French national who lived in France.

According to RTFB, the Francophone state broadcaster, weapons and military uniforms were found in the boot of the car, a red Citroën, and a security perimeter was put in place.

Bart De Wever, the mayor of Antwerp, said on Thursday afternoon that an attack had been thwarted in the city, according to local media reports. He added that extra police and army officers had been deployed.

The attack came a day after a car was driven at high speed along London’s Westminster Bridge in an attack that resulted in the deaths of four people – including the driver.

Wednesday was also the day that Belgium marked the first anniversary of the twin bomb attacks in Brussels that killed 32 people.

Belgium’s prime minister, Charles Michel, who took part in ceremonies to mark the first anniversary of the Brussels attacks, praised the work of the security services.

“We are monitoring the situation very closely,” he wrote on Twitter. “Our security services have been exemplary in their work in Antwerp.” </s> 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 day after a driver mowed down pedestrians outside of British Parliament, a man in Antwerp, Belgium, attempted a similar attack on Thursday. This time, however, no one was hurt.

Police said an attacker in camouflage clothing attempted to enter the pedestrian shopping street De Meir while driving a car at “high speeds” at around 11 a.m. The shoppers in the vehicle’s path were able to get out of the way and police gave chase. They quickly stopped the car and arrested its driver, who reportedly had a rifle and knives in the car, along with a container filled with an unidentified liquid.

Antwerp police chief Serge Muyters identified the man as being of North African descent, while the federal prosecutor said he is a 39-year-old French national named “Mohamed R.” The car he was driving had French license plates.

The attempted attack comes just a day after Belgium marked the first anniversary of the suicide bombings that killed 32 civilians in Brussels. </s> BRUSSELS: A man who tried to drive at high speed into a shopping district in the Belgian city of Antwerp on Thursday (Mar 23) was a French national living in France with knives and other weapons in his car, prosecutors said.



Belgian police arrested the man after he tried to drive into a crowd at high-speed, a police chief said.

The man was of north African origin and used a car with French registration plates, Antwerp police chief Serge Muyters said.

The incident came a day after an attack on the British parliament killed three people plus the attacker, as well as after the first anniversary of the Brussels attacks in which 32 people died.

"A vehicle with French plates has tried to drive at high speed into the Meir (shopping street). A man in camouflage was taken away," Muyters told a news conference.

"The pedestrians had to jump aside," he said.

"My gratitude on behalf of all Antwerp to the soldiers who have intervened, the police services and the special intervention force," Antwerp mayor Bart de Wever tweeted.

Prime Minister Charles Michel said the government was "following this situation as it develops" in the Flemish-speaking northern city.

"We continue to be vigilant. Our security services did an excellent job in Antwerp, thanks," he tweeted.

Meir is the main shopping street in Antwerp's historic centre and is mostly pedestrianised. It is one of the most important shopping areas in the country.

With soldiers deployed at key sites, Belgium has been on high alert since March 22 last year when suicide bombers attacked Zaventem airport and Maalbeek metro station that left 32 people dead and more than 320 wounded.

Belgium suffered a further shock in August when a machete-wielding man shouting "Allahu akbar" (God is greatest) attacked two policewomen in the industrial town of Charleroi.

He badly injured one in the face, before a third officer shot him dead.

Islamic State militants have claimed responsibility for a number of attacks using vehicles in Europe in recent months, including Wednesday's carnage in London.

Attackers rammed lorries into crowds in the French city of Nice in July last year killing 86 people and a Christmas market in the German capital Berlin last year.

On Wednesday, Belgium's King Philippe and Queen Mathilde led ceremonies commemorating the Brussels bombings, which were also claimed by Islamic State.

Interior Minister Jan Jambon told AFP in the runup to the anniversary that tighter security had made Belgium safer safer than it was a year ago.

However he said it faced the threat of continuing radicalisation at home and from battle-hardened fighters returning from Middle East battle fields.

Belgium's federal prosecutor Frederic Van Leeuw told AFP in November that the cell that carried out the Brussels bombings, and was involved in the Paris attacks, had got its orders from high up in the IS command.

Numbering around 500, Belgium is the European Union's largest per capita source of so-called foreign extremist fighters, but Jambon said none had left the country for the Middle East since January 2016. </s> ANTWERP, BELGIUM: Police in the northern Belgian city of Antwerp said yesterday they had detained a man who tried to enter the main pedestrianised shopping street in a car at high speed, adding that security in the city would be stepped up.

"At about 11am (6pm, Singapore time) a vehicle entered De Meir at high speed due to which pedestrians had to jump away," a police spokesman said, referring to the street name.

He added that the driver was arrested and additional police and military personnel had been deployed to the centre of Antwerp, Reuters reported.

"Different arms were found in the boot - bladed weapons, a riot gun (rifle) and a container of liquid that is still unidentifiable," a prosecutor's statement said.

Antwerp police chief Serge Muyters said: "Our army colleagues spotted it and tried to bring the vehicle to a halt. But the driver broke free and drove through the red light towards the port quays.

"The suspect, a man of north African origin, was immediately arrested."

The federal prosecutor's office, which has taken over the investigation, named the suspect as Mohamed R, a 39-year-old resident of France.

An army disposal squad was sent to the scene.
Prostitutes in Brussels' Rue d'Aerschot red-light district go on strike today after one of their colleagues is found murdered this morning.