Belgium cuts cop sentence for shooting migrant toddler

MONS, Belgium: A Belgian court on Thursday reduced from 12 to 10 months a police officer’s suspended sentence for fatally shooting a Kurdish toddler during a chase of a van carrying migrants.

Two-year-old Mawda was fatally wounded by a shot to the head in May 2018 as police chased a van being driven across Belgium by traffickers taking migrants from the continent to Britain. The high-profile tragedy caused a scandal in Belgium and, for rights activists, became a symbol of the dangers posed by the "criminalisation" of irregular migration.