The man who killed three people during a knife and shooting rampage through the Belgian city of Liege carried out an act of “terrorist murder,” prosecutors said yesterday, as authorities tried to establish whether he had acted alone.
Benjamin Herman, an inmate released on a two-day prison furlough, attacked two female police officers with a knife from behind, stabbing them repeatedly, before stealing their weapons and shooting them as they lay on the ground, officials said.
Crossing the road, he fired several shots at a 22-year-old man who was a passenger in a car, killing him.
Photo: Reuters
Herman then took at least one woman hostage at a nearby school.
When police closed in, he ran onto the sidewalk firing and police fatally shot him.
Four officers were wounded.
He yelled “Allahu akbar,” the Arabic phrase for God is great, several times during Tuesday’s rampage, prosecutors said.
The attack has shaken Belgium, where police and military have been working overtime to guard public buildings since coordinated suicide attacks on Brussels Airport and the city’s subway system killed 32 people and injured hundreds on March 22, 2016.
Belgian Federal Magistrate Wenke Roggen yesterday said that the attack was considered “terrorist murder and attempted terrorist murder.”
It is being treated as terrorism given the way Herman acted, she said, adding that it resembled Islamic State group calls via video to attack police with knives and steal their weapons.
An investigating magistrate specializing in terrorism has ordered autopsies on those killed at the scene and a toxicology examination of the attacker.
Herman has had several run-ins with police since he was a minor and has been sentenced on assault, drug and insubordination charges, prosecutors said.
He left prison early on Monday and should have returned on Tuesday evening.
Earlier, Belgian Minister of the Interior and Security Jan Jambon confirmed that Herman had killed another person the day before the attack.
The woman he took hostage might have talked the shooter down and helped to avoid more deaths inside the school, he added.
Jambon, Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel and Belgian King Philippe visited the woman in the hospital, where she was being treated for shock.
“She was very courageous and perhaps — but this we will have to verify — she helped avoid more victims in the school,” Jambon said.
Jambon confirmed that the fourth victim was a former inmate who did prison time with Herman.
Herman is alleged to have killed the man on Monday evening by hitting him over the head with a blunt object.
An investigation has been launched into the incident, including the circumstances surrounding Herman’s release from prison, he added.
“It’s really an isolated case. He wasn’t part of a network, he didn’t receive instructions from anyone else, so there is no need to raise the terror threat alert level,” Jambon said, adding that investigators have no precise information that any other attacks might be likely.
Amid questions about how two police officers could have been disarmed, Jambon praised the work of all involved, saying: “The police did an extraordinary job.”
“They reacted well. All the systems, all the procedures worked, but if you are attacked from behind, as was the case with the two officers, you can’t do anything,” he said.
The police officers have been identified as Soraya Belkacemi, 44, and Lucile Garcia, 54.
The passenger in the car was named as Cyril Vangriecken, 22, who was training to become a primary-school teacher.
Belgian media reports named the man killed before Tuesday’s rampage as Michael Wilmet.
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