Belgium officials criticize security failure after attack
Belgian officials have criticized the potential security failure that led to the furloughing on Tuesday of a prisoner with a long criminal history who killed two police officers and a bystander in an attack on that same day.
According to Press TV, the assailant, identified as Benjamin Herman, went on a killing spree in the city of Liege just hours after his release from jail on Tuesday. The 36-year-old Herman had been in and out of prison for a variety of crimes since 2003 and reportedly “under suspicion of radicalization.”
“Everyone in Belgium is asking the same question: how is it possible that someone convicted for such serious acts was allowed to leave prisons?” asked Belgium’s Deputy Prime Minister Alexander de Croo on Wednesday.
“If it were me, I would not have let him go,” said Brussels Security Consultant and former French agent Claude Moniquet as cited by Reuters.
However, other Belgian authorities discounted the radicalization claim and defended Herman’s release.
Justice Minister Koen Geens claimed that there had been no reason to suspect this time would be different from his earlier furloughs. He said Herman’s latest temporary leave from jail was the 14th time since his detention and was intended to help him prepare for eventual reintegration into society in 2020.
“I don’t think those are mistakes,” Geens underlined, referring to the furloughs granted. “It is not a clear-cut case of radicalization — otherwise he would have been flagged by all services.”
Belgium’s Prime Minister Charles Michel also concurred that Herman had not figured directly on the main national register of threats.
The Belgian parliament issued a report last year warning that convicts in the country have been behind several recent attacks in Europe, further expressing concerns that hundreds of prisoners deemed radical by authorities are due to be released in the coming years.
Herman stabbed two policewomen — aged 45 and 53 — from behind, seized their handguns, and shot both dead on a boulevard in the center of Belgium’s third biggest city at around 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday local time. He then gunned down a 22-year-old trainee teacher who was sitting in a car and then entered a high school about 100 meters away and took two female employees hostage.
Elite police forces were deployed, the students were moved to safety, and the assailant was ultimately killed in a gun battle with the police forces.
ME
