Liege attack: Gunman kills five in Belgium

A convicted gun fanatic threw hand grenades and opened fire on a square bustling with Christmas shoppers in the centre of the Belgian city of Liège, killing at least six people, including himself, and wounding dozens, some critically.

Hours after failing to show up for police questions about his preoccupation with guns, the 33-year-old unleashed a lunchtime attack on Place Saint Lambert, which was hosting a Christmas market that attracts 1.5 million visitors a year.

Last night King Albert II and Queen Paola visited Liège, a tough, post-industrial city in the east of the country, which was in a state of shock after the attack. Initial fears that a trio of terrorists could be responsible were ruled out by police and prosecutors, as was speculation that Belgium could be contending with a Norway-copycat killing spree.

"It was an isolated act which has sown sorrow in the heart of the city," said Willy Demeyer, the mayor of Liège, the main city in Belgium's francophone smaller half, Wallonia.

Police said there were no indications that the dead assailant, a local man, had been involved with terrorism. Nor was there evidence of any ideological motivation for the murders.

The gunman threw three hand grenades on the busy square, one at a bus shelter, killing two teenage students instantly.

An elderly woman died later of her injuries, as did a 23-month infant and a 20-year-old man.

The Liège prosecutor's office said 75 people were injured in the shootings and explosions, with many of them reported to be in a grave condition in local hospitals and in the Netherlands next door.

The gunman was named as Nordine Amrani, a 33-year-old Liègeois who was known to be a "gun freak", according to the police. He was given a jail term of almost five years after police officers raided his metal workshop three years ago and found a dozen firearms, including an AK-47 machine-gun, and 9,500 gun parts. He was also found guilty of drug dealing after cultivating 2,800 marijuana plants.

Amrani arrived on the square with hand grenades, a rifle and a revolver.

He mounted a platform on the square and lobbed three grenades, opened fire with the rifle and then shot himself with the handgun, according to police.

With local bloggers and Twitter networks switching into overdrive, there were detailed "reports" on the alleged trio who had supposedly carried out the attack, with one said to have been arrested and the other allegedly fleeing through a bus tunnel after spraying the square with Kalashnikov fire.

Police said these reports were entirely inaccurate.

Place Saint Lambert is the city centre's busiest traffic hub and the location of the bus station as well as the Palais de Justice, which houses the main court and prison compound. Witnesses spoke of panic and blood-spattered streets as mayhem erupted at about 12.30.

Hervé Taverne, a middle-aged man working in the district, told Belgian radio: "We were just coming out of the justice building and we saw someone throwing a hand grenade. It all happened so quickly that we ran for our lives. I grabbed a youngster inside, back into the building.

"After that various wounded were brought in. We heard gunshots outside. Meanwhile we heard that there were several perpetrators, but we only saw one. We were also told that this was a [prison] escape operation."

A delivery man, Dimitri Degryse, was driving past when the gunman opened fire. "I heard an explosion and I thought there was something wrong with my car. Then a second grenade went off, I saw smoke and heard several shots.

"People were lying bleeding on the ground. I stopped to help them. We tried to get the wounded off the street as quickly as possible."

Gaspard Grosjean, a reporter for a Liège newspaper, arrived on the scene moments after the attack. "We saw people with bullet wounds in their shoulders, their hands," he told Reuters. "I see people completely scared, people are crying, everyone is on their phones."

Belgian mobile operators reported a surge in calls at lunchtime in the city centre, causing disruption to the networks.

The royal couple joined the country's new prime minister, Elio Di Rupo, and other senior government figures gathering in Liège.

For Di Rupo, a Walloon socialist of Italian extraction who is Belgium's first native French-speaking prime minister in more than 30 years, the tragedy is his first test. He was sworn in as prime minister only last week following Belgium's world record in being unable to form a government – 589 days.

While police, prosecutors and politicians all emphasised that the Liège tragedy was no terrorist or politically-inspired assault – "he has no history of terrorist acts," the Liège prosecutor, Daniele Reynders, told journalists – there was no persuasive motive given to explain the rampage.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/13/liege-gunman-attack-nordine-amrani
I am sorry to post this as it have nothing to do with erepublic but I fell like posting this.

This was a sad way to start my day. :<

Sad, very sad news

The guy who did this, a certain Nordine Amrani ([sarcasm] sounds like a Belgian name to me, ... certainly not suggesting it's an arab, yet again, coz that would be racist to even imply such a thing[/sarcasm]) was arrested earlier when they found 2800 cannabis plants in his house, dozens of weapons including a AK47 and a rocketlauncher and over 9500 (!!) weapon parts. On top of that he was convinced of rape

His sentence: 11 000 euro's fine and 58 months in prison (of which he only did 2/3 due to early release, since our prisons are a bit too full)


gotta love our justice system.

Wow! That is very sad! Shadowukcs always know what to say! NOT!!!!

shadowukcs wrote:The guy who did this, a certain Nordine Amrani ([sarcasm] sounds like a Belgian name to me, ... certainly not suggesting it's an arab, yet again, coz that would be racist to even imply such a thing[/sarcasm]) was arrested earlier when they found 2800 cannabis plants in his house, dozens of weapons including a AK47 and a rocketlauncher and over 9500 (!!) weapon parts. On top of that he was convinced of rape

His sentence: 11 000 euro's fine and 58 months in prison (of which he only did 2/3 due to early release, since our prisons are a bit too full)


gotta love our justice system.

Sounds about right =|

I was actually hoping for a normal belgian name. Unfortunately this is another idiot that fuels racism even more, like we didn't have enough of that around already...

I tend to think that things like these can't happen in Belgium, but they keep surprizing me over and over again (Van Temse, De Gelder, now this, and I don't even start about all those serial killers and other psychopats we've had in the last 20 years)...

This is indeed a sad day. All of our hearts go out to the city of Liege, the victims and their families. I know many of us were hoping the little girl who died could be saved. I think it was entirely appropriate for you to post this here, Xgentis. Even those of us who are not RL Belgian care very much for our Belgian friends.

I have thought many times today of LvL and wondered how he must be feeling.

Pff, the Norway have done far better a couple of month ago, we are not ambitious enough, even in our kills.

Don't like to make jokes about this.

shadowukcs wrote:The guy who did this, a certain Nordine Amrani ([sarcasm] sounds like a Belgian name to me, ... certainly not suggesting it's an arab, yet again, coz that would be racist to even imply such a thing[/sarcasm]) was arrested earlier when they found 2800 cannabis plants in his house, dozens of weapons including a AK47 and a rocketlauncher and over 9500 (!!) weapon parts. On top of that he was convinced of rape


gotta love our justice system.

Really Shad ? What would've you said if he had been called Jan Vandeput ? "Oh God, he was a total piece of work and murdered people but at least he was a good Belgian" ?
As Aldous pointed out, there were many killers and psychopaths in the past years who had "real Belgian names"... what does it bring to their victims and their families ?

And Jofroi reminds us that not so long ago, a crazy tall-blond-blue-eyed guy killed dozens of his "own" people just for the sake of saving his country from "southerners"... madness is madness and knows no boundaries, that's all.

This day is a very sad day for Belgium and also a shame, not only because of the killer, but because of all the reactions i can read on Facebook for example (and even on #eBrussels)... There is so many dumb guys, f******g racists all over the place, who can't think...

I'm sure that if the victims would have been muslim, then it would have been a big victory, right ? sigh

I'm digusted by such comments like the one made by shadowukcs...

Insanity and evil know no race or religion. I have RL Moroccan frirends who are among the sweetest people I know. Besides that, this guy's record shows that he is no true Muslim, any more than a person born Catholic would be a true Catholic if he lived that way.

Retards, retards everywhere, no matter their race, religion or whatever.

twas more of a criticism towards our crappy justice system rather than a racist comment. Trust me, if I where to make a racist comment I would be a little bit more obvious.


Oh and TR, the naive attitude of ppl like yourself is what makes ME sick. Because ppl like yourself clearly have no idea how the world (or rather the streets of major belgian cities) are. I have nothing against Morrocans. I have several morrocan friends myself, but the pure and simple fact is: "North Africans" represent less than 10% of the Belgian population, but nearly 60% of our prison population. And you don't need to be a statistical genius to draw conclusions from that.

I have many friends in the police who work in Anderlecht, Molenbeek, Elsene, Schaerbeeck. And the truth is that in those regions, it IS always them.

I am not saying that all Morrocans are thieves and scum, but it is a fact (be it thanks to their social situation, poverty, environment,...) that they represent a bigger share in the criminality in Belgium than any other ethnic group out there. That's not racist, that's merely saying what is happening. And if stupid hippies like yourself would remove their "boohooo, everyone is the same" eye-pads and see the world how it really is, you'd agree.

Oh and Maryam, I'm not speaking about a religion, I'm speaking about a ethnic group of whom a big part lives in poverty and in the lower ladders of society, which they use as an excuse to stop abiding the law.

shadowukcs wrote:but the pure and simple fact is: "North Africans" represent less than 10% of the Belgian population, but nearly 60% of our prison population. And you don't need to be a statistical genius to draw conclusions from that.

I have many friends in the police who work in Anderlecht, Molenbeek, Elsene, Schaerbeeck. And the truth is that in those regions, it IS always them.

can you give a reliable source of that 'pure and simple fact' ? cause that is the kind of talk I also hear when I go to a bar...
Furthermore you can proof almost everything with statistics, just on the way you present them.
Unfortunately in the neighbourhoods you talk about there is no good mix of ethnics, the majority of people there are not 'white, catholic middle class', so indeed you will not find a lot of these people doing crime, cause they are just not there...
Yeah there are problems in belgium and one of them is the way our justice system works or the concentration of poor people without chances in some neighbourhoods with cultural differences that leads to tension, however that doesn't justify the simplification of the situation that you made.

I have to be with TR and NLSP on this. Racism is a foul thing that destroys us all. Statistics say only what the messenger wants. Reality is always more complicated. If anything xenofobie, racism and nationalism is destroying our society. That together with neo-liberal greet...

Pointing fingers is very easy, changing things isn't...

But the justice is indeed laxist. This guy was a canabis producer was arested for sexual agression and possesion of enought weapons to equip a small army even anti-tank weaponry.

It's by abusing this kind of horrible events for false propaganda that grounds for racism are fed shadowukcs. That is exactly what you are doing here. Yes, it is true that certain neighbourhoods in Brussels and other major cities are badly frequented and that is because of a lack of true justice and xenophobia. The fact that certain minor towns force ghetto-forming of poor immigrants in larger cities is a bigger factor then the nationality of those involved.

As a young boy, I grew up in Borgerhout, I've seen things get worse there and I wouldn't be able to find a single white catholic family with children in the neighbourhood we left behind us. I've lived in different areas of Brussels and each landlord had problems with certain nationalities... one didn't want Polish peoples because they drink too much, another didn't want black people because the appartment "smells" bad afterwards, people always find some kind of reason for racism. The stygmatisation of minority behavior on a group of people is a real problem. It are those stygma that people feel as children that carry over to young adults feeling excluded from "normal" society.

It's very easy to be normal. It really is. When you never have to experience any difficulties. When you are able to exclude others. If we as a society don't stand up and say that this kind of xenophobic remarks are wrong we will end up yet again facing the decadence of sub-par morality. Shunning those who dare to speak up against your remarks is only further proof of your foul intentions. My father and brother have been in prison, I won't allow you to use that to put a criminal branding on me either. Reflect on what you've written and ask yourself if those people who are criminals have the right to take the chances away from those who haven't done anything wrong.

De Ikke wrote:
Kansen
----------
Mensen kunnen naief zijn
Geloven dat alles kan veranderen
Geloven dat iemand anders had kunnen zijn
Één iemand van alle anderen
Iemand uit iedereen

En misschien is het hypocriet te zeggen dat iedereen kan veranderen
Als je niemand er de kans toe geeft
En misschien is het dom te zeggen dat iemand anders mag zijn als anderen
Als je hem zijn fouten niet vergeeft
Misschien heeft niet iedereen het recht zichzelf te zijn

I'm going to stay away from this silly argument. :3

This is all soooo touching! I think I am going to cry.