Reported Plan to Target Belgian Premier Prevented
Belgian police have detained three people accused of plotting an strike on the government's premier, Bart de Wever.
Legal authorities labeled the suspected plan as a terrorist act motivated by jihadist ideology targeting the PM and additional politicians.
During investigations conducted in Deurne, Antwerp, close to the prime minister's home, officials found a potential homemade bomb and indications that the suspects were intending to use a drone.
While the prospective targets of the attack were not disclosed by name by the legal authorities, Vice Premier Maxime Prevot confirmed that Belgium's leader was one of them.
"Information of a planned assault directed toward PM Bart de Wever is deeply alarming," Prevot wrote in a post on social media on the investigation day.
"It emphasizes that we are facing a very real terrorism risk and that we have to keep watchful," he concluded.
The three people detained on suspicion of terrorism-related attempted murder and involvement in the functions of a jihadist network all are based in the Antwerp region, according to the federal prosecutors. They were born in three different years between 2001 and 2007.
By Thursday evening, one person was let go, while the other suspects were still being questioned and scheduled to face a judge on Friday.
The prosecution said that the individuals were arrested after a court official directed raids of their dwellings in the location by police officers backed by bomb detection canines.
It was during these searches that they discovered a device which "bore strong resemblances to an improvised explosive device", federal prosecutor Ann Fransen stated at a media briefing on the day of the events.
Raids also uncovered a "bag of steel balls" and a three-dimensional printer, with "indications that they intended to use a drone to attach a payload", she noted.
The prosecutor stated that there had been eighty counter-terrorism cases initiated in the country this year - surpassing the full amount of cases in 2024.
In April, five people were convicted for a 2023 plot to target De Wever while he was acting as the city's chief executive.