Reported Plan to Attack Belgian PM Foiled
Belgium's police have arrested three individuals allegedly involved in conspiring to carry out an assault on the country's premier, Bart de Wever.
Federal prosecutors characterized the reported plan as a extremist assault with jihadist roots targeting the PM and other elected representatives.
During investigations conducted in the Deurne area of Antwerp, close to the prime minister's personal dwelling, authorities found a suspected IED and proof that the individuals were intending to use a unmanned aerial vehicle.
While the prospective targets of the assault were not publicly identified by the legal authorities, Vice Premier Maxime Prevot stated that de Wever was one of them.
"Reports of a planned assault aimed at Premier Bart de Wever is profoundly disturbing," Prevot declared in a post on social media on the investigation day.
"This underscores that we are dealing with a very real terrorism risk and that we have to remain vigilant," he concluded.
The three individuals taken into custody on charges of terrorism-related attempted murder and involvement in the operations of a jihadist network all live in the Antwerp region, per the legal authorities. They were with years of birth in three different years between 2001 and 2007.
By late Thursday, one suspect was let go, while two others were undergoing questioning and expected to face a judge on the following day.
The prosecution revealed that the suspects were arrested after a court official directed searches of their homes in the city by officials assisted by bomb detection canines.
In the course of these raids that they discovered a device which "bore strong resemblances to an improvised explosive device", federal prosecutor Ann Fransen said at a media briefing on the day of the events.
Raids also found a container of metal spheres and a 3D printer, with evidence suggesting drone-based payload delivery, she continued.
Fransen stated that there had been eighty counter-terrorism cases initiated in the nation this year - more than the full amount of cases in the previous year.
In April, five people were convicted for a scheme last year to strike De Wever while he was serving as the mayor of Antwerp.
