Two police officers and civilian dead in Belgium terrorist shooting

A prisoner on day release who shot dead two police officers and a bystanderin Liège on Tuesday in a suspected terrorist attack had killed another person the previous evening.

The gunman also took a female cleaner hostage at a school before being killed by police. Four other police officers were also injured.

The man’s motive is not yet clear but the incident is being treated as terrorism.

Belgium’s interior minister, Jan Jambon, revealed that Benjamin Herman, 31, “committed a murder the night before” he went on his shooting spree in the Belgian city.

The victim was a former prisoner and convicted drug dealer, Michael Wilmet, 30, who was found with injuries consistent with being attacked by a blunt instrument to the head.

Herman was killed in a shootout with police on Tuesday after stabbing two female police officers as they checked parking meters and then shooting them dead with one of their service revolvers.