Two police officers and one passerby were shot dead in the eastern Belgian city of Liege on Monday before being killed in a shootout. Belgian investigators have opened a terrorism inquiry following the incident.
The man, named as Benjamin Herman, 31, approached two police officers from behind while carrying a knife and stabbed them several times, said Philippe Dulieu, spokesman for the Liege prosecutor’s office. Seizing their service revolvers and shot them dead. He also killed Cyriel Vangriecken, 22, a student at the University of Liège, who was in the passenger seat of his mother’s Ford Fiesta.
Name of the two murdered police officers were as Lucile Garcia, 53, who had recently become a grandmother, and Soraya Belkacemi, 45, a mother to 13-year-old twins. Garcia got married to a fellow police officer last month , who was present at the scene shortly after the shooting.
After killing the two officers, the attacker continued to walk through the street and opened fire on a parked vehicle, fatally wounding the driver inside, Dulieu said.
According to the prosecutor, the miscreant then took shelter in a local high school, where he held a female cleaner hostage. When police intervened, the man opened fire, injuring several other officers, before he was shot dead.
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.”
> Shiuly Rina
