Belgian charged with terror-related offences after stabbing 2 police officers

Prosecutors charged a Belgian man, who stabbed two police officers, with attempted terror-related murder and being part of a terrorist group on Thursday and detained his brother.

Prosecutors charged a Belgian man, who stabbed two police officers, with attempted terror-related murder and being part of a terrorist group on Thursday and detained his brother.

Part of a knife on the ground behind a police cordon as police investigate the scene where a man stabbed two police officers, in the Schaerbeek neighborhood in Brussels on Wednesday. (AP)

The man, 43-year-old Belgian Hicham D, stabbed one officer in the neck and another in the stomach and broke the nose of a third. Named by media as Hicham Diop, he was then shot in the leg and taken to hospital.

Belgian media said Diop was a former soldier who may have had a grudge against the police after being hit accidentally by a police car in 2011.

Read: Two police officers stabbed in Brussels, incident may be terror-related

His brother Aboubaker D, a Belgian born in 1970, was detained on Thursday afternoon. A special counter-terror judge will decide on Friday whether he should remain in custody.

Brussels is on high alert after bombings in March killed 32 people at the city’s airport and in a subway carriage.

(Reporting by Philip Blenkinsop; Editing by Louise Ireland)