Alleged Plan to Strike Belgian PM Thwarted
Belgium's police have detained three people accused of conspiring to carry out an strike on the nation's prime minister, Bart de Wever.
Prosecutors described the reported scheme as a "jihadist-inspired terrorist attack" targeting the PM and other politicians.
During investigations conducted in the Deurne area of Antwerp, close to the premier's home, authorities uncovered a alleged improvised explosive device and indications that the suspects were preparing to employ a unmanned aerial vehicle.
While the planned victims of the assault were not disclosed by name by the federal prosecutors, Second-in-command Maxime Prevot confirmed that Belgium's leader was included in the targets.
"The news of a intended attack targeting PM Bart de Wever is profoundly disturbing," the deputy prime minister wrote in a update on social media on the investigation day.
"This underscores that we are facing a genuine extremist danger and that we have to keep watchful," he continued.
The three suspects taken into custody on charges of plotting a terrorist killing and engagement in the operations of a extremist organization all live in Antwerp, as stated by the prosecutor's office. They were with years of birth in three different years between 2001 and 2007.
By Thursday evening, one of the individuals was freed, while two others were undergoing questioning and expected to be presented before a court on Friday.
The prosecution revealed that the suspects were taken into custody after a court official authorized searches of their homes in the city by law enforcement supported by explosives-trained dogs.
In the course of these investigations that they discovered a item which "bore strong resemblances to an improvised explosive device", legal representative Ann Fransen said at a press conference on the day of the events.
Raids also uncovered a "bag of steel balls" and a three-dimensional printer, with "indications that they intended to use a drone to attach a payload", she noted.
Fransen said that there had been eighty counter-terrorism cases initiated in the country this year - surpassing the full amount of instances in the previous year.
In April, five people were convicted for a previous year's plan to strike Belgium's leader while he was serving as the mayor of Antwerp.