
A terrorist who slaughtered three people in Belgium spared a school cleaner because she was a Muslim and had clubbed his ex cellmate to death a day before the bloodbath after the pair carried out a robbery, it has emerged.

The attacker, named as Benjamin Herman, knifed police officer Lucile Garcia, 54, and her colleague Soraya Belkacemi, 45, while shouting 'Allahu Akbar' before using their guns to shoot them dead during the Liege bloodshed yesterday, for which ISIS has claimed responsibility.

Herman then shot 22-year-old teacher Cyril Vangriecken and took two women hostage inside a school - telling one of them he would not harm her because she was a Muslim and to spare her tears for Palestinians and Syrians. He was then killed in a hail of bullets during a dramatic shoot-out with police that was caught on camera.

A Belgian federal magistrate said today the Liege attacks are considered 'terrorist murder' and the investigation now centres on whether the suspect acted alone.

Herman, 31, is also suspected of murdering a former cellmate, named in Belgian media as Michael Wilmet, 30. Nieuwsblad reports that Wilmet had been Herman's accomplice in a robbery on Monday night but was later found dead in the district of Marche-en-Famenne, 30 miles from Liege, having been hit with a blunt instrument.

Herman was on a 48-hour release from prison when he carried out the rampage on Tuesday. Having been in jail since 2003, it was the 14th occasion he had been given temporary leave ahead of his planned 'reintegration into society' in 2020.

As questionmarks remained this morning over what was known about Herman's radicalisation, devastated police officers gathered to mourn the deaths of their fallen colleagues near the City Hall in Liege.

A terrorist who slaughtered three people on the streets of Liege while shouting 'Allahu Akbar' had clubbed his ex cellmate to death a day before the bloodbath after the pair carried out a robbery, it has been claimed. This morning, police officers stood for a moment of silence to pay tribute to two colleagues butchered by the attacker, named as Benjamin Herman

Devastated police officers wept today as they mourned the deaths of Lucile Garcia, 54, and her colleague Soraya Belkacemi, 45

A Belgian federal magistrate said today the Liege attacks are considered 'terrorist murder' and the investigation now centres on whether the suspect acted alone

Soraya Belkacemi, left, and Lucile Garcia, right, were hailed as wonderful mothers and police officers by their colleagues after being killed in today's attack

Killed: The civilian shot dead by the attacker has been named as Cyril Vangriecken, 22, from the nearby town of Vottem

Herman, 31, is also suspected of murdering a former cellmate, named in Belgian media as Michael Wilmet (pictured), 30

Victims: The two female police officers were stabbed and then shot dead with their own weapons in the attack on Tuesday

Attacker: This image published by Belgian news website HLN allegedly shows the male attacker brandishing two firearms which he reportedly stole from the policewomen he gunned down in Liege, Belgium

Bernadette Hennart, mother of late police officer Soraya Belkacemi, accompanied by her son Kamel, wept as she paid tribute to her daughter today. Belkacemi was knifed from behind before being shot by a terror attacker yesterday

Flowers have been left at the scene as a steady stream of people came to pay their respects this morning. Among them was , Bernadette Hennart, the mother of slain police officer Soraya Belkacemi

Fellow students of murdered 22-year-old Cyril Vangriecken take part in a minute of silence for the victims of the shooting

Prime Minister Charles Michel has acknowledged the assailant, who had a lengthy criminal record that included theft, assault and drug offenses, had appeared indirectly in three reports on radicalism but was still allowed to take a leave from prison.

The prime minister added, however, that the reference was 'in notes that did not primarily target him, but others or other situations,' and he was not on a list of suspects maintained by the main OCAD anti-terror assessment group.

Justice Minister Koen Geens, who oversees the prison service, said he felt 'responsible' for Tuesday's bloodshed.

'The question of whether this man should have been given leave is striking because he killed three completely innocent people with a wish to kill himself,' Koen Geens told RTBF radio. 'I have to examine my own conscience.'

Earlier, Geens had defended the decision to grant the attacker prison leave, saying there was no reason to suspect this time would be a different from his earlier furloughs.

'I don't think those are mistakes,' he said. 'It is not a clear cut case of radicalisation - otherwise he would have been flagged by all services.'

This morning, a Belgian security source told Reuters that the attacker had converted to Islam while in detention and was under suspicion of radicalisation.

In Belgium, a prisoner's inclusion on a state security list as a suspected radical is not automatically communicated to all police or the prison service, experts say.

Murdered: Police officer Lucile Garcia has been named as one of the two policewomen killed in Liege, Belgium on Tuesday

This is the moment Belgian special forces shoots and kills the suspected terrorist in Liege, Belgium on Tuesday

Down: Police special forces are seen next to the body of what is believed to be the attacker, outside the high school

People wait in line to sign a condolence book at the town hall in Liege, Belgium. A gunman killed three people, including two police officers, in Liege on Tuesday

A man is pictured today paying tribute to the three people slaughtered on the streets of Liege as police continue to probe the motives behind the attack

Respects: A woman lays flowers at the scene of yesterday's bloodshed at the boulevard d'Avroy in Liege

A woman cries as she walks by police officers during a moment of silence for shooting victims near the City Hall in Liege,

During a shootout the man was said to have entered a high school where he took a female cleaner hostage before being shot by the police. People are pictured observing a minute's silence today

Police officers and others stand for a moment of silence for shooting victims near the City Hall in Liege, Belgium

The attacker's profile drew concern about the risk of petty criminals, including those not from Muslim backgrounds, being inspired to Islamist violence while jailed.

Convicts have been behind several recent attacks in Europe. Hundreds of prisoners deemed radical by authorities are due to be released in the coming years, the Belgian parliament warned in a report late last year.

'They come in as drug dealers and leave as Salafi jihadists,' a security source said.

'Is our system working when we see that these kind of people are running free?' asked vice premier Alexander De Croo, echoing the thoughts of many in a nation where armed police and gun-toting soldiers still patrol the streets in the wake of the March 2016 attacks that left 32 people dead at the Brussels airport and subway system.

HOW THE LIEGE ATTACK PLAYED OUT At around 10.30am (0830 GMT), a man followed two female police officers, stabbed them several times, then grabbed their firearms and shot both dead.

He then travelled on foot before opening fire on a 22-year-old man in the passenger seat of a parked car, killing him.

The suspect then entered the Leonie de Waha high school in the French-speaking city where he took an employee hostage.

Police officers arrived on the scene, with the assailant opening fire on the officers, wounding several of them in the legs before they killed him.

The high school pupils were evacuated from the rear of the building and none was injured.

The school is closed through Wednesday and students will be given psychological counselling.

The case has been classified as a suspected 'terrorist offence' and transferred to the Belgian federal prosecutor's office, which investigates terror cases.

Officials have still to confirm media accounts that the assailant shouted 'Allahu Akbar' (God is greatest in Arabic) several times before stabbing one of the police officers in the throat.

Unconfirmed reports have named the man as Benjamin Herman, 31, a career criminal described as 'violent' by fellow inmates Advertisement

Tuesday's attack happened outside a cafe in the eastern city of Liege when the assailant crept up on the two female officers from behind and stabbed them repeatedly.

'He then took their weapons. He used the weapons on the officers, who died,' the Liege prosecutor's spokesman, Philippe Dulieu, told reporters.

Dulieu said the attacker then shot and killed a 22-year-old teacher in a vehicle that was leaving a parking lot outside a nearby high school. He then took two women hostage inside the school before confronting police massed outside.

'He came out firing at police, wounding a number of them, notably in the legs. He was shot dead,' the spokesman said, adding that the hostages escaped unharmed.

The attacker shouted 'Allahu akbar,' the Arabic phrase for 'God is great', several times during spree before he was shot down by a group of police officers, magistrate Wenke Roggen said.

Ms Roggeen said the attack is being treated as terrorism given the way Herman acted, which she said resembled Islamic State calls to attack police with knives and steal their weapons.

Allied to this is the fact that he yelled 'Allahu Akbar', and had been in contact with radicalised people.

Adding further evidence of an Islamist motive, a school cleaning woman who was briefly held by Herman told public broadcaster RTBF that he assured her he would do her no harm as she was a Muslim and told her to spare her tears for Palestinians and Syrians.

Interior Minister Jan Jambon said the woman he took hostage may have talked the shooter down and helped to avoid more deaths inside the school.

Jambon, Prime Minister Charles Michel and King Philippe visited the woman in hospital, where she was being treated for shock.

'She was very courageous and perhaps, but this we will have to verify, she helped avoid more victims in the school,' Jambon said.

The cleaning woman, identified only by her first name Darifa, told state broadcaster RTBF that Herman said he just wanted to 'stir up' the police. He asked her if she was a Muslim and if she was observing the holy fasting month of Ramadan.

'He told me don't worry, I won't do anything at all. Listen, you do what I say, but don't worry. I won't do anything to you,' the woman said. She said he threw his ID card on the ground before running out to confront the police.

'I think he knew that it was all over for him. And he went out,' she said.

However, unlike after other suspected 'lone wolf' attacks in Europe, there has been no claim of responsibility by ISIS. The terror group had previously struck Belgium in a horrific attack on Brussels airport and metro in March 2016.

Meanwhile, officials praised the quick wittedness of the cafe owner outside whose bar Herman had killed the two policewomen. By the time the killer, wielding two police pistols, came in looking for more victims, he had got all his customers into hiding.

Scene: A witness' photo show emergency services in central Liege after the unnamed man shot two police officers and a bystander, and then took a woman hostage inside a high school

Elite unit: Belgian Special Police are pictured at the scene of the alleged terror attack in Liege on Monday

A white car is towed away away from the scene of the shooting today in Belgium as a police officer stands at the scene in Liege

Murdered: A graphic video uploaded on social media shows the two police officers shot down in the street on Tuesday in what is now considered a terror attack

Confirming that Herman was also believed to have killed an acquaintance 30 miles away on Monday night, Jambon told RTL radio: 'There are signs he was radicalised in prison but is it that radicalisation which drove him to commit these acts?

'It could have been because he had nothing to look forward to, because he also killed someone the night before, the guy's psychology and the fact, it seems, he may have been on drugs.'

Justice Minister Koen Geens described the assailant as a repeat offender who had been incarcerated since 2003 and was due for release in two years.

Police Chief Christian Beaupere said 'the goal of the attacker was to target the police.' He identified the slain officers and said Belkacemi was the mother of 13-year-old twin daughters who earlier lost their father, also a police officer. Four other officers were wounded in the attack, one seriously with a severed femoral artery.

Belgian media identified the suspect as Benjamin Herman, a Belgian national born in 1982, though in keeping with standard procedure authorities declined to confirm his identity.

Herman's first brush with the law was in 2003 when, aged 16, he was placed for several weeks in a juvenile home in the Flemish region of Everberg. Herman and his brother were both reported to be cocaine and heroin addicts.

'Every day they hunted for money to get their fix,' the newspaper La Meuse reported.

Jambon said authorities were also investigating the suspected killing on Monday of an old acquaintance of the assailant and said there could be a link. 'It is a serious hypothesis,' he told the VRT network.

Asked about a video from close to the scene in which someone appeared to be shouting 'Allahu Akbar!' in the din, Jambon said: 'My reaction is that in many terror acts, it is the last thing they shout.'

The Liège victims: 22-year-old man was shot dead as he sat next to his mother, one officer was newly married to a police chief and the other was mother of twins The victims of the suspected terror attack in Belgium have been revealed as a 22-year-old trainee teacher killed in front of his mother, a newly married police officer and a mother of twins. This afternoon the two police officers were named as Lucile Garcia, 45, from Herve in Belgium's Verviers region, and her 53-year-old colleague Soraya Belkacemi. Garcia had only married a month ago to a local police commissioner Patrick Hagelstein and had recently become a grandmother - something she was 'very proud of'. Murdered: Police officer Lucile Garcia has been named as one of the two policewomen killed in Liege, Belgium today Colleagues described her as a 'fantastic woman'. She had been touched by tragedy ten years ago when a 21-year-old family member had lost his life in a road accident. Belkacemi, a mother of 13-year-old twins, started her career with the police as an assistant agent but climbed the ranks of the police force after completing her exams. The third victim was named as Cyril Vangriecken, 22, from Vottem, near Liège, who was killed in front of his mother. Mr Vangriecken was sat in the passenger seat next to her in their Ford Fiesta, when he was shot at close range. Witnesses said she was sobbing and covered in her son's blood after the attack. His Facebook profile revealed him to be popular young man, who was passionate about the game, petanque, a form of boule. Advertisement

'The investigation judge must find out if we talk about terror. Because terror also has to do with someone who gives the order, ISIS or someone else, if others are involved. We need to look at all these elements,' Jambon said.

A senior official at the federal prosecutor's office told The Associated Press that 'there are indications it could be a terror attack.' He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation.

Nevertheless, Belgium's crisis centre, on high alert since a Brussels-based ISIS cell helped kill 130 people in Paris in 2015, said the country's terror threat alert would not be raised and remained at level 2 out of 4. It briefly stood at a maximum 4 shortly after the 2016 Brussels attacks.

Belgium's King Philippe, Michel and the country's justice and interior ministers traveled to Liege to confer with local officials.

'I want to offer my government's support for the victims, for the victims' families,' Michel said.

It's not the first time Liege has been hit by a violent attack. In December 2011, a man with a history of weapons and drug offenses hurled hand grenades into a square filled with Christmas shoppers then opened fire on those who tried to escape. Five people were killed, including the assailant.