‘Radical’ prisoner on day-release kills 3 in gun and knife attack
A VIOLENT robber on day release yesterday killed two women police officers with their own guns in what is believed to be the latest terror attack in Belgium. Benjamin Herman, 36, who was thought to have been radicalised behind bars, completed the bloodbath by killing a 22-year-old man sitting in his car beside his mother as he opened fire on traffic in the eastern city of Liege.
Herman had become increasingly close to radicalised inmates, was "psychologically unstable" and wanted to "carry out attacks when released"
The killer was also being linked to a murder committed in a neighbouring province on Monday night, hours after he got out of prison.
Herman, who cut the officers' throats from behind before disarming them, was finally gunned down by Belgian's elite PAB armed police after taking a cleaning lady hostage while trying to hide in a school near his killing spree.
Footage showed him running out of the school with two guns blazing.
Sources said he was "determined to die" in the showdown, which left four officers injured.
The murdered police victims were named locally as Soraya Belkacemi, a 53-year-old mother of teenage twins, and Lucile Garcia, 45, who married local police commissioner Patrick Hagelstein a month ago.
The man killed was student Cyril Vangriecken.
Prosecutors said terrorism was a "likely" motivation for the crimes.
Herman, a Belgian national, is said to have shouted "Allahu akbar" - Arabic for "God is the greatest" - as he launched his attack yesterday morning, a day after being temporarily bailed from Arlon prison for family leave.
Questions were last night being asked about why he was freed unsupervised.
He had convictions for robbery, assault and drug dealing.
A prison service source said he had become increasingly close to radicalised inmates, was "psychologically unstable" and wanted to "carry out attacks when released".
In 2016 an Isis cell murdered 32 people in the capital Brussels in coordinated bomb attacks.