Belgium's interior minister says a man with a knife shot by police in a Ghent train station was an Afghan refugee with mental problems and was not a known extremist.

Jan Jambon told broadcaster RTBF Wednesday that "there is no link to any terrorist motive. He is a known refugee, of Afghan nationality who is not thought to be radicalized."

Police shot the 28-year-old man, who was yelling outside and in the busy Ghent St. Pieters station late Tuesday, when he approached them and refused to drop a small knife he was carrying.

Ghent prosecutors' spokeswoman An Schoonjans said he was seriously injured.

Jambon said the incident does not call into question Belgium's decision on Monday to lower its terrorism threat level after more than two years on high alert.