Belgium shooting: Attacker who killed three people in Liege was 'hunting' police officers, say authorities

Suspected gunman carried out attack while on temporary family release from prison, Belgian state media says

An attacker who killed three people in the Belgian city of Liège on Tuesday morning was “hunting” police officers, local authorities have said, amid an investigation into whether the incident was terror-related.

Two police officers on routine traffic duties and one passer-by were killed in knife and gun attacks before the assailant was killed by police special forces in an exchange of gunfire at a school.

The attacker had stabbed the two women police officers from behind, before taking their firearms and shooting a 22-year-old man in a nearby car at random, the local prosecutors said at a press conference in Liège.

The assailant, named locally as Benjamin Herman, 36, then ran into a nearby school and took a hostage – reported to be a female cleaner – before being “neutralised” and killed in a rescue operation mounted by local special forces. Two other police officers were also injured in the attack, shot in their legs.

The shooting and stabbings took place on Boulevard d’Avroy, a major commercial artery on the west side of the river Meuse, which cuts the city in two. Liège is Belgium’s third largest urban area and the largest in the French-speaking Wallonia region.

An armed police perimeter remained in place around the scene of the incident at the end of Tuesday’s working day, with part of the boulevard closed and traffic backed up and at a standstill through the centre of town.

Three forensics tents could be seen inside the perimeter: one in front of the modernist grey Athénée Leonie de Waha school, and two near the Aux Augustins restaurant just down the road.

Forensics experts clad in white overalls examined the scenes while plain-clothes officers wearing police-issue bulletproof vests walked in a fanned-out line down the boulevard, apparently performing a thorough search of the surrounding area. An ambulance could be seen parked nearby.

Local residents mainly stayed away from the scene following the incident, with the city returning to normality quickly, but a few attempted to approach with floral tributes. Social media footage from the scene showed people running away upon hearing gunshots.

Belgian state broadcaster RTBF reported that the gunman carried out the attack while on temporary family release from prison, where he was serving a sentence for drug offences, so that he could spend time with relatives as part of his rehabilitation process. It suggested he might have been radicalised while in custody, though local authorities are still examining whether the incident is extremism-related. One unnamed official suggested there were “indications it could be a terror attack”, while another, Yves Stevens, of Belgium’s federal crisis centre said there was “absolutely no confirmation yet that the incident is terror-related”.

The police officers killed were named in local media reports as Lucile Garcia, 45, and Soraya Belkacemi, 53. Ms Garcia was described by colleagues as a “fantastic woman” who had recently married her partner. Local press named the civilian victim as Cyril Vangriecken, a 22-year-old from Vottem, a town 10 minutes drive north of the city centre.

Liège, traditionally a major coal and steel producing city, has suffered from industrial decline in recent decades. Seven people were killed in the town in 2011 after a gun and grenade attack on Place Saint-Lambert, 15 minutes walk from the site of today’s killings. That attack, in which the gunman was killed, was determined to be a murder-suicide.

Commenting on Tuesday’s attack, Belgian prime minister Charles Michel decried the violence as “cowardly and senseless”, adding: “All our support for the victims and their loved ones. We are following the situation with the security services and the [anti-terror] crisis centre.”

The country’s interior minister Jan Jambon said that investigators were trying to establish “exactly what happened”. He added: “Our thoughts are with the victims of this horrible act.”

Though Belgium has not officially raised its state of terror readiness, armed police at Brussels central station were more visible than usual around Tuesday lunchtime. There was little visible extra security at Liège railway station, however, with little disruption in the city other than backed-up traffic due to the road closure. Brussels suffered three suicide bombings in March 2016, in which 32 people were killed.

Mr Michel, as well as the country’s monarch King Philippe, are expected to visit the town in the aftermath of the attack. Pupils at the school affected have been transferred to nearby schools, authorities said.

In a message on social media, Prime Minister Theresa May offered her thoughts to “the victims of today’s cowardly attack in Belgium and their grieving families”. She added: “The UK stands resolute with our Belgian allies against terror.”