Reported Plan to Strike Belgian PM Foiled
Belgian authorities have taken into custody three people suspected of planning an assault on the government's PM, Bart de Wever.
Federal prosecutors characterized the reported scheme as a extremist assault with jihadist roots targeting the PM and additional politicians.
During investigations conducted in the Deurne area of Antwerp, in proximity to the prime minister's personal dwelling, authorities discovered a suspected homemade bomb and proof that the suspects were intending to deploy a UAV.
While the intended targets of the strike were not disclosed by name by the prosecutor's office, Vice Premier Maxime Prevot stated that de Wever was one of them.
"The news of a planned assault targeting PM Bart de Wever is deeply alarming," the official stated in a message on online platforms on the day of the arrests.
"It highlights that we are facing a genuine terrorist threat and that we have to stay alert," he added.
The three people taken into custody on charges of attempted terrorist murder and engagement in the operations of a extremist organization all are based in the Antwerp region, per the federal prosecutors. They were born in three different years between 2001 and 2007.
As of Thursday evening, one of the individuals was let go, while the other suspects were under interrogation and scheduled to face a judge on the following day.
The prosecution stated that the accused were detained after a court official directed searches of their dwellings in the urban area by police officers backed by bomb detection canines.
In the course of these investigations that they found a object which "bore strong resemblances to an improvised explosive device", legal representative Ann Fransen announced at a press conference on Thursday.
Searches also uncovered a container of metal spheres and a additive manufacturing device, with evidence suggesting drone-based payload delivery, she noted.
The prosecutor stated that there had been 80 terrorism investigations initiated in the nation this year - more than the full amount of cases in the previous year.
In April, five people were sentenced for a previous year's plan to strike De Wever while he was serving as Antwerp's mayor.
