Alleged Scheme to Strike Belgian Premier Thwarted
Belgium's police have taken into custody three people accused of plotting an strike on the nation's PM, Bart de Wever.
Legal authorities labeled the suspected plan as a extremist assault with jihadist roots targeting the premier and other elected representatives.
During searches conducted in Deurne, Antwerp, in proximity to the premier's private residence, authorities discovered a suspected homemade bomb and indications that the individuals were preparing to use a drone.
While the planned victims of the assault were not publicly identified by the prosecutor's office, Deputy Prime Minister Maxime Prevot revealed that de Wever was among them.
"Information of a planned strike directed toward Prime Minister Bart de Wever is profoundly disturbing," Prevot wrote in a update on X on Thursday.
"It emphasizes that we are dealing with a very real terrorist threat and that we have to remain vigilant," he concluded.
The three suspects taken into custody on allegations of plotting a terrorist killing and engagement in the operations of a extremist organization all are based in the Antwerp region, as stated by the federal prosecutors. They were had birth years in 2001, 2002 and 2007.
On late Thursday, one person was let go, while the remaining two were undergoing questioning and scheduled to be presented before a court on the following day.
Legal authorities said that the suspects were taken into custody after a magistrate ordered searches of their residences in the urban area by police officers supported by bomb detection canines.
Throughout these searches that they located a device which appeared to be an IED, federal prosecutor Ann Fransen said at a news conference on that day.
Raids also uncovered a container of metal spheres and a additive manufacturing device, with "indications that they intended to use a drone to attach a payload", she noted.
Fransen stated that there had been 80 extremist probes initiated in Belgium so far this year - surpassing the overall count of instances in the previous year.
In April, five people were convicted for a previous year's plan to attack Belgium's leader while he was acting as Antwerp's mayor.
