Reported Plot to Strike Belgian Prime Minister Thwarted
Belgian police have arrested three people suspected of planning an attack on the nation's PM, Bart de Wever.
Prosecutors described the reported plan as a extremist assault with jihadist roots targeting the premier and fellow government officials.
During investigations conducted in the Deurne area of Antwerp, close to the PM's home, officials discovered a suspected improvised explosive device and indications that the accused were preparing to use a drone.
While the intended targets of the attack were not officially named by the prosecutor's office, Vice Premier Maxime Prevot stated that de Wever was among them.
"Information of a planned strike targeting Prime Minister Bart de Wever is profoundly disturbing," the official wrote in a message on online platforms on the investigation day.
"It emphasizes that we are confronting a very real extremist danger and that we have to keep watchful," he added.
The three individuals taken into custody on suspicion of plotting a terrorist killing and engagement in the functions of a extremist organization all are based in Antwerp, according to the federal prosecutors. They were had birth years in the early 2000s.
As of late Thursday, one suspect was released, while the remaining two were undergoing questioning and scheduled to be presented before a court on the following day.
Federal prosecutors said that the suspects were taken into custody after a magistrate directed inspections of their homes in the location by officials supported by explosive sniffer dogs.
It was during these raids that they discovered a item which appeared to be an IED, legal representative Ann Fransen announced at a media briefing on that day.
Searches also revealed a collection of ball bearings and a three-dimensional printer, 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 this year - surpassing the full amount of cases in the previous year.
In April, five suspects were sentenced for a scheme last year to target De Wever while he was serving as the city's chief executive.
