Reported Plan to Attack Belgian Premier Prevented
Belgian law enforcement have taken into custody three suspects suspected of conspiring to carry out an attack on the government's premier, Bart de Wever.
Legal authorities described the reported scheme as a extremist assault with jihadist roots targeting the prime minister and additional elected representatives.
During raids conducted in Deurne, Antwerp, near the prime minister's personal dwelling, investigators found a potential improvised explosive device and indications that the suspects were planning to employ a drone.
While the prospective targets of the assault were not disclosed by name by the prosecutor's office, Second-in-command Maxime Prevot revealed that de Wever was included in the targets.
"Information of a intended strike aimed at PM Bart de Wever is deeply alarming," the official wrote in a message on social media on the day of the arrests.
"This underscores that we are confronting a serious terrorist threat and that we have to keep watchful," he continued.
The three individuals arrested on charges of terrorism-related attempted murder and engagement in the operations of a terrorist group all live in Antwerp, according to the prosecutor's office. They were with years of birth in three different years between 2001 and 2007.
By Thursday evening, one of the individuals was freed, while two others were under interrogation and expected to appear in court on the following day.
Legal authorities said that the suspects were detained after a court official ordered raids of their residences in the urban area by officials supported by bomb detection canines.
Throughout these investigations that they discovered a object which closely resembled a homemade bomb, legal representative Ann Fransen said at a news conference on the day of the events.
Raids also revealed a "bag of steel balls" and a 3D printer, with evidence suggesting drone-based payload delivery, she continued.
Fransen disclosed that there had been eighty counter-terrorism cases launched in the nation this year - surpassing the overall count of instances in the previous year.
Earlier this year, five suspects were sentenced for a scheme last year to strike Belgium's leader while he was serving as Antwerp's mayor.
