AA Belgian police officer was killed in Brussels on Thursday evening. The federal prosecutor’s office is therefore investigating suspected murder “in a terrorist context,” as a spokesman said on Friday. The alleged perpetrator Yassine M. was arrested immediately after the crime and should be brought before an investigating judge on Friday. The case raises many questions, especially after a possible police failure. Because the 32-year-old man, who was born in Brussels, was registered as a threat and had apparently made threats at a police station before the attack. Despite this, he was not arrested or placed under permanent observation, only handed over for voluntary psychiatric treatment.
According to the Brussels public prosecutor Tim De Wolf, a person – apparently Yassine M. – appeared at a police station in the north of the city on Thursday morning at 10 a.m. “She made incoherent comments, spoke of hatred for the police and asked for psychological support.” The officers had examined psychiatric monitoring, but found that “the person did not meet the legal criteria” because they had been willing to voluntarily seek psychiatric treatment to be treated. At the direction of prosecutors, officers took the man to the psychiatric ward of a nearby hospital and drove away. Later they had asked by telephone whether he had been placed under surveillance there. The man had already left the hospital by then.
Motif: “extremist religious beliefs”
On Thursday evening, around 7 p.m., the perpetrator then attacked two patrol officers with a knife, whose car stopped at a red traffic light in the north of Brussels. He seriously injured a 29-year-old police officer in the neck. This officer succumbed to his injuries in hospital later that evening. The second officer, who injured his arm, was out of danger as of Friday. He had called for help who arrested the perpetrator and reported that he had shouted “Allahu Akbar”, “God is greatest”. According to the federal prosecutor, Yassine M. was on the list of violent threats. He served a prison sentence between 2013 and 2019, during which time he became radicalized and was transferred to Ittre maximum security prison. There he attacked a guard, saying his motive was “extremist religious beliefs”.
The police union commented on the incident on their Facebook page, saying: “Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame!” It was “incomprehensible” that the man had not been arrested before the crime. The head of the Brussels-North police district promised the relatives that they would do everything they could to get the answers to which they were entitled.