Yahoo News Police officer killed in Liege 'terrorist murders' was mother of twins whose father had died
One of the two female police officers killed in a shooting in Belgium was the mother of twins whose father has already died.
The twin 13-year-old daughters of Soraya Belkacemi, 53, were made orphans when she was stabbed then shot dead near a café in the city of Liege on Tuesday by a prisoner on day leave.
She was killed along with another female officer, Lucile Garcia, 45. A male civilian sitting in a nearby car, 22-year-old Cyril Vangriecken, was also shot dead by the gunman.
The twin girls’ father, who was also a police officer, had died recently, Belgian police said.
The attacker has been named by Belgian media as Benjamin Herman, a 36-year-old Belgian national who was serving a 17-year sentence for drugs and theft convictions.
On Wednesday, it was revealed that Herman killed another person the day before his attack in Liege.
Belgium’s interior minister Jan Jambon told broadcaster RTL that the gunman “also committed a murder the night before”.
Mr Jambon confirmed that the victim was a former inmate who did prison time with Herman.
Herman is alleged to have killed the man on Monday evening by hitting him over the head with a blunt object.
The killings on Tuesday are being considered “terrorist murders”, a Belgian federal magistrate said, with reports that the shooter was radicalised while in prison.
He was on a 36-hour release from prison to stay with his grandmother in the town of On.
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Prosecutors said the attacker stabbed the two police officers from behind then took their guns from them and shot them dead.
He then shot and killed Mr Vangriecken, a student on the verge of qualifying as a primary school teacher, who was sitting in the passenger seat of a parked car.
The gunman was shot dead by police following a stand-off at a nearby school after taking a cleaner hostage. He wounded four officers there before he was killed – one of them was seriously injured with a severed femoral artery.
Justice minister Koen Geens said the attacker was a repeat offender who had been incarcerated since 2003 and was due for release in two years.
Liege prosecutors’ spokesman Philippe Dulieu said the man crept up on the two officers from behind, before stabbing them several times.
Mr Dulieu said: “He then took their weapons. He used the weapons on the officers, who died.”
The two police handguns had a total of 17 bullets.
“Liege police intervened. He came out firing at police, wounding a number of them, notably in the legs. He was shot dead,” the spokesman said.
Belgian prime minister Charles Michel said Herman was indirectly mentioned in state security reports on radicalisation “in notes that did not primarily target him, but others or other situations”.
The prime minister said Herman did not have his name on a list maintained by an anti-terror assessment group.
Belgium’s King Philippe, Mr Michel and the country’s justice and interior ministers travelled to Liege to meet local officials about the attack.
Mr Michel said: “I want to offer my government’s support for the victims, for the victims’ families.”
Belgian police and military have been on alert since suicide bombers killed 32 people at the Brussels airport and subway system in 2016.
