Prison day-release practice under scrutiny after killings in Belgian city

BRUSSELS: Belgian authorities faced questions on Wednesday over why a prison inmate, believed to have been radicalised in jail, was let out for a day and used it to kill three people in the city of Liege as well as a former associate.

The justice minister, who oversees the prison service, said he felt “responsible” for Tuesday´s bloodshed in which two policewomen and a bystander were killed. The attacker was shot dead by police at a nearby school shortly afterward. “The question of whether this man should have been given leave is striking because he killed three completely innocent people with a wish to kill himself,” Koen Geens told RTBF radio. “I have to examine my own conscience. “Interior Minister Jan Jambon said authorities were still examining the motives of Benjamin Herman, a 31-year-old Belgian drug dealer who had been in jail for years but was let out for two days on Monday to prepare for an eventual release in 2020.

But federal prosecutors said there was evidence that theye were dealing with “terrorist murder”. Herman had shouted “Allahu Akbar”, the Muslim affirmation of faith, during his attack and he had had contacts with Islamist radicals in jail in 2016 and early 2017.He also appeared to have followed online exhortations from Islamic State to stab police officers and use their service weapons to shoot others, prosecutors said. Officials praised the quick wittedness of the cafe owner outside whose bar Herman had killed the two policewomen, aged 54 and 44.