He died after stabbing a policeman in the neck. (Representative)
Brussels, Belgium:
Federal prosecutors said on Friday that the man who stabbed a Brussels police officer to death before being shot and arrested was already on a watch list maintained by Belgium’s terrorism watchdog agency.
Investigators told reporters that the suspect, Yasin M, born in Brussels in 1990, shouted “Allahu Akbar” – “God is great” when attacking two officers in a patrol car on Thursday.
One of the policemen, identified only as 29-year-old Thomas M, was stabbed in the throat and died shortly after. Another 23-year-old officer has been operated on for a wound on his right hand and will survive.
The federal prosecutor referred the case to an investigating magistrate as an alleged “murder and attempted murder made in a terroristic context.”
A second police patrol intervened during the incident, which took place in the evening near Gare du Nord station in the Belgian capital, and the attacker was shot and wounded and taken into hospital custody.
Earlier in the day, the suspect presented himself at a Brussels police station, in what Tim de Wolff, the head of the Brussels prosecutor’s office, described as “inconsistent remarks”.
“He spoke of hatred against the police and asked to be taken care of psychologically,” de Wolf said.
Yasin M was taken to the psychiatric emergency room of a Brussels hospital, but he was not arrested or detained, officials said, who did not meet the criteria for an involuntary commitment.
Islamic attacks
“That was voluntary,” de Wolf said, explaining that police had left the suspect in the hospital under the care of nurses.
The Brussels prosecutor’s office said, “Later, the police again contacted the hospital to find out whether the person had been put under observation. It turned out that he had left the hospital.”
Yassine M. was imprisoned for “common law crimes” between 2013 and 2019, but was also on a list prepared by the Coordinating Unit for Threat Analysis (OCAM), a Belgian terror observatory that monitors extremism .
Brussels is currently conducting a trial for those accused of involvement in the 2016 Islamic State group attacks, which killed 32 people at the city’s main airport and crowded metro station.
The trial is the largest ever before a Belgian jury, with 960 civilian plaintiffs representing and the former NATO headquarters being turned into a high-security court complex on the edge of the city.
Between 2016 and 2018 Belgium saw several deadly Islamic terrorist attacks against the police or the military.
The last attack classified as a terrorist offense took place in May 2018 in the city of Legg, when a radical attacker shot dead two policemen and a student and was gunned down by officers.
The OCAM watchdog’s general risk level is currently set at “moderate” – or two on a scale of one to four, where one is “low” and four is “very severe”.
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
Featured Video of the Day
What’s not to like about Kriti Sanon and Varun Dhawan’s chemistry?