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Updated 4.15pm
ATTACKERS RAMMED A car through the gates of Belgium’s national crime laboratory on Monday in Brussels and then started a fire in what officials said may have been an attempt to destroy evidence.
Five people were arrested nearby but later released, while prosecutors said there was no confirmed link to terrorism so far. No one was injured in the fire or by a large explosion which shook houses nearby.
The incident comes as Belgium remains on high alert following suicide attacks on the capital’s airport and metro system in March which were claimed by the Islamic State group.
“This location was not chosen randomly,” said Ine Van Wymersch, a spokesman for the Brussels prosecutor’s office, adding that the institute deals with “sensitive information in connection with several ongoing cases.”
Prosecutors had opened an investigation into “deliberate arson of a building and damage by explosion”, while bomb disposal experts attended the scene.
“The possibility of a terrorist act is not confirmed. It goes without saying that several individuals may have wanted to destroy evidence related to their legal cases,” Van Wymersch added.
She said that “several attackers forced their way into the institute using their car and were able to attack the building” and had apparently deliberately targeted the wing where the laboratories are located.
The incident happened in the early hours Monday at the national criminology institute in Neder-Over-Hembeek, a northern suburb of Brussels, and near the famed Atomium tourist attraction.
Part of the building was scorched and burned out, an AFP reporter saw, while a burned out car was lifted from the scene by a crane.
- ‘Powerful’ explosion -
Fire service spokesman Pierre Meys said there was an “extremely powerful” explosion, adding: “Windows of the lab were blown out dozens of metres away.”
He said about 30 firefighters were at the scene at around 3am (local time) fighting the blaze.
A young woman living in the neighbourhood said the explosion woke her up.
“It made the house shake,” she told AFP, asking not to be named.
The institute is part of Belgium’s federal justice system. Among its tasks is carrying out forensic analysis for criminal cases.
With reporting by AFP
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It must be hard being the only fat man in your country.
@Eoin Mulhern: North Korea is Ultra-Nationalism brought to it’s logical conclusion. It’s quite scary the number of similarities between Kim Jong-Un and Donald Trump.
You don’t have to like trump to see that that’s hyperbole openborders.
North Korea isn’t nationalism, sure it doesn’t even include half of its nation. It sounds more like fascism to be hon, but who knows what it’s really like, other than Matt Cooper!
@Eoin Mulhern: I read his grandfather ate 2 dogs a day, rotten git…
1 Sausage dog & 1 Hot dog
Kim Jong-Un’s father is dead?
I didn’t even know he was il.
@john fairclough:
Like
@john fairclough: He suffers dreadfully from wet feet when he sees his doctor… Because his doctors name Is We Too Low…
Thanks RT… LOL.
He must have no other relations or cousins. If he did then chances are he probably doesn’t anymore.
@Tweed Cap: He has a brother
There is a more complete article on the BBC website. He’s aware that his extended family will be in a camp being “re-educated” (at least)
@Tricia Golden: And sisters:
A hard burden for him to carry around for the rest of his days.
@Tricia Golden: For 3 generations. 3 generations are imprisoned – often born, raised and die in a prison camp.
@Tricia Golden: In the video link he clearly states that IF Kim Jong-Un’s position is threatened as a world power, be would use nuclear weapons against the world as we know it. Scary concept that there is he and trump at the controls of nuclear buttons.
Some of the old mates of Howlin and the stickies must be upset were they not frequent visitors to that part of the world #The unfinished revolution
Trump in a modern day Cuban missile crisis, I’d go to see that in the cinema. Your man Baldwin from SNL would be a shoe in for main lead.
You are worthress Arec Barrwin!!
“the regime is in decline, with its people increasingly disillusioned” are they sure it wasn’t an American defector??
@Gavrilo Princip: Or British…..
Or German?
Oh ffs. Is the student bar closed, lads?
@Frank’s Cat: They are all off being taught how to pull real pints…
@Gavrilo Princip: You polititc is based on envy
@Val Martin: how so?
He’s not Wong there.
Lacist!
Plick!
@David Mac Shite: borrox!
Seems to harping on about North Korea’s nuclear development a little to much for the sceptic in me.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this was a propaganda stunt arranged by Kim Jong un himself to grab the attention of us westerners to his nuclear programs success.
After all why was this guy out of all the ambassadors allowed to take all his family with him?
He wasn’t.
So how did he
@Shane Murphy: he didn’t take all his family with him. Just two sons and the rest of his family are most likely now in camps, as he says in the BBC interview.
I say fair play to him. Seems genuine and will take a lot more like him to finally put an end to this terrible totalitarian state.
There must not be any threadmills over there . The size of the little fat despot .
There’s a North Korean reads the Journal? Why else would someone give you a thumbs down?
Fat shaming is wrong, mmmkay!
Solidarity with the 88.5 million euro lotto winner.
Wally quick, your homeland is falling apart. Your esteemed leader needs you to stop trying to convert us, go home, get up on the nearest hill and Kim can use you for mortar practice. The “worker” Kim can then share in your wealth to put a roof over his head.
See you got turfed off the journal again Wally!!!
@Alan Cooke: “The elite were “turning their backs” on leader Kim Jong-Un” and we thought it is a “mass movement of ordinary workers” headed by the top worker Kim Jong Un. The left and the Shinners will go ballistic.
Now. how to fix a warhead on a moore Street firework
China should be doing something to help these people, they’re in the best position to do it.
@TehJurolan: Killing cats?
No doubt SF/IRA will regard the defector as a traitor to the cause.
@Paddy Lions: You are more S.F. now than S.F. are?
Where is Dave O’Keefe?, he is a huge commie supporter
Jasus Kim , the cattle broke out again. Did Ya get them in again Kim.
Misleading picture, much? For one wild moment there I thought Kim Lard-Arse had defected from his own regime.
Sum Guy.
One of the most high-profile defectors from North Korea has held his first press conference…after weeks of prepping with his western puppet masters. Hmmm…
@Yenreit: At least you are honest. Readers can see what the left want for the rest of us. They would endure Kim’s rule for them and their children for the trill of seeing us suffer it.
@Val Martin I’m not left or right. I just call it as I see it.
Kim is waving and saying you could be like me, if your weren’t eating weeds in my fields…
have your say