Reported Plan to Strike Belgian PM Prevented
Belgium's law enforcement have arrested three people accused of conspiring to carry out an attack on the government's premier, Bart de Wever.
Prosecutors described the alleged scheme as a extremist assault with jihadist roots targeting the PM and other elected representatives.
During investigations conducted in Antwerp's Deurne district, close to the premier's private residence, investigators discovered a alleged improvised explosive device and indications that the suspects were intending to deploy a UAV.
While the intended targets of the strike were not officially named by the legal authorities, Deputy Prime Minister Maxime Prevot revealed that the prime minister was among them.
"Information of a premeditated strike targeting Prime Minister Bart de Wever is profoundly disturbing," the deputy prime minister declared in a update on social media on Thursday.
"It highlights that we are confronting a serious extremist danger and that we have to keep watchful," he continued.
The three suspects taken into custody on suspicion of plotting a terrorist killing and involvement in the functions of a extremist organization all live in the Antwerp region, as stated by the legal authorities. They were born in the early 2000s.
As of the evening of the arrests, one person was let go, while two others were under interrogation and scheduled to face a judge on the following day.
Legal authorities revealed that the suspects were taken into custody after a court official ordered raids of their homes in the city by law enforcement assisted by explosives-trained dogs.
Throughout these searches that they located a item which closely resembled a homemade bomb, federal prosecutor Ann Fransen stated at a news conference on the day of the events.
Raids also found a container of metal spheres and a 3D printer, with "indications that they intended to use a drone to attach a payload", she added.
The prosecutor disclosed that there had been eighty counter-terrorism cases opened in Belgium this year - more than the full amount of investigations in 2024.
During the spring, five suspects were sentenced for a scheme last year to target the prime minister while he was holding the position of the city's chief executive.
