13 Arrested over Terror Plot to Kill Belgian Police
Belgian police arrested 13 people during a dozen raids overnight, smashing plot to kill police officers "in public roads and in police stations", prosecutors said Friday.
Two Islamist suspects were shot dead during a gun battle after one of the police raids in the eastern town of Verviers on Thursday night.
"The group was on the verge of carrying out terrorist attacks to kill police officers in public roads and in police stations," spokesman Eric Van der Sijpt told a news conference.
Police found Kalashnikov assault rifles, explosives, ammunition and communications equipment -- along with police uniforms that could have been used for the plot, he said.
Belgium will also seek the extradition of two Belgian suspects from France, although there is no link seen with last week's Paris attacks, prosecutors told a news conference a day.
"I can confirm that we started this investigation before the attacks in Paris," Van der Sijpt said.
The "important arrests" meant that "not only a terror cell but also their support network" have been dismantled, he added.
Belgian authorities charged five people with "participating in a terrorist group" following a series of raids to foil alleged imminent attacks against the police, the prosecutor's office said.
Three people, including one who survived a deadly police raid in the eastern town of Verviers, were placed in custody and two others conditionally released, prosecutor spokesman Eric Van der Sijpt told AFP.
He declined to identify the accused.
The eight other people who had been detained following the raids in Verviers and in the Brussels area will not be prosecuted.
Van der Sijpt said an examining magistrate issued a European arrest warrant for two Belgians questioned by French customs as they tried to enter Italy after leaving Belgium in the wake of Thursday's raids.
Belgian newspapers identified the survivor of the raid that killed two alleged militants in Verviers as Marouane T.
His lawyer, Didier de Quevy, told newspapers from the Sudpresse group that the man denied having been implicated in a plot and having travelled to Syria, saying instead he was involved in a drug deal when police carried out the raid.
Jihadist Twitter accounts identified the two men who were killed in the raid as Radwan Haqawi and Tareq Jadoun. Prosecutors said the men had opened fire with combat weapons when police intervened.
Sudpresse reported that two young men -- whose names they spelt as Redwane Hajaoui and Tarik Jadaoun -- had left Verviers for Syria and had returned to their home town without their parents knowledge.
"Redwane Hajaoui is apparently one of the victims," Sudpresse wrote on its website.
Source: Agence France Presse
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