Alleged Plan to Attack Belgian PM Prevented
Belgian authorities have arrested three people suspected of plotting an assault on the nation's premier, Bart de Wever.
Legal authorities described the alleged plot as a terrorist act motivated by jihadist ideology targeting the prime minister and other politicians.
During investigations conducted in Antwerp's Deurne district, close to the PM's home, investigators found a potential IED and proof that the suspects were intending to employ a drone.
While the prospective targets of the assault were not publicly identified by the legal authorities, Vice Premier Maxime Prevot stated that the prime minister was one of them.
"Reports of a premeditated strike targeting Premier Bart de Wever is deeply alarming," the official declared in a message on X on the investigation day.
"It highlights that we are facing a serious terrorism risk and that we have to keep watchful," he continued.
The three individuals taken into custody on suspicion of plotting a terrorist killing and participation in the operations of a extremist organization all live in Antwerp, per the prosecutor's office. They were with years of birth in 2001, 2002 and 2007.
As of late Thursday, one person was freed, while the other suspects were undergoing questioning and scheduled to face a judge on the following day.
Federal prosecutors stated that the suspects were detained after a judge ordered inspections of their residences in the urban area by officials backed by bomb detection canines.
Throughout these searches that they found a item which closely resembled a homemade bomb, legal representative Ann Fransen announced at a media briefing on Thursday.
Raids also uncovered a "bag of steel balls" and a additive manufacturing device, with signs of drone weaponization plans, she added.
The prosecutor said that there had been eighty counter-terrorism cases launched in the nation so far this year - more than the full amount of cases in the previous year.
Earlier this year, five individuals were convicted for a previous year's plan to target Belgium's leader while he was serving as the mayor of Antwerp.
