Reported Scheme to Target Belgian Premier Prevented
Belgium's law enforcement have arrested three individuals accused of plotting an attack on the country's prime minister, Bart de Wever.
Legal authorities characterized the alleged plan as a terrorist act motivated by jihadist ideology targeting the prime minister and other government officials.
During raids conducted in Deurne, Antwerp, close to the prime minister's personal dwelling, authorities found a potential homemade bomb and proof that the suspects were preparing to employ a drone.
While the planned victims of the assault were not disclosed by name by the legal authorities, Second-in-command Maxime Prevot stated that the prime minister was one of them.
"Information of a intended strike aimed at Prime Minister Bart de Wever is profoundly disturbing," Prevot wrote in a message on social media on the investigation day.
"This underscores that we are dealing with a very real terrorist threat and that we have to stay alert," he concluded.
The three suspects taken into custody on allegations of attempted terrorist murder and participation in the functions of a extremist organization all are based in the Antwerp region, according to the federal prosecutors. They were with years of birth in three different years between 2001 and 2007.
By Thursday evening, one person was freed, while two others were undergoing questioning and scheduled to appear in court on the next day.
The prosecution said that the individuals were arrested after a magistrate ordered searches of their homes in the urban area by police officers assisted by explosives-trained dogs.
It was during these investigations that they located a device which "bore strong resemblances to an improvised explosive device", legal representative Ann Fransen announced at a news conference on Thursday.
Raids also revealed a container of metal spheres and a three-dimensional printer, with signs of drone weaponization plans, she noted.
Fransen said that there had been 80 terrorism investigations opened in the country this year - exceeding the total number of cases in the previous year.
In April, five people were found guilty for a previous year's plan to attack De Wever while he was acting as Antwerp's mayor.
