The Iranian student whose actions led to a police operation in the centre of Brussels yesterday (Wednesday), was set free during the evening. This was after a police interview with the Ixelles police stated the Public Prosecutor’s Office, a little after midnight.
“For several hours, it was not clear whether or not the suspect was in possession of explosives,” indicated the Public Prosector’s Office. “This investigation lasted several hours but, for the reasons which are now known, there was no risk to the public. In the end, it turned out that the individual was in possession of technical material, which was being used as part of his student studies,” concluded the Public Prosecutor’s Office. The young man was not known to the authorities.
Yesterday afternoon, at the Place de la Monnaie in Brussels, a significant police operation was carried out, involving federal special police units and the army’s bomb disposal squad.
The individual thought to be “behaving suspiciously” whose actions led to this excessive security deployment was, it transpires, an Iranian student of the University of Ghent conducting research upon urban and rural radiation. To do so, he was equipped with a prototype measuring instrument taking the form of a jacket which included cables and batteries.
“It was at this point that he was considered as a suspect,” the university commented. The university also went out of its way to press home that, moreover, the language barrier gave rise to further misunderstandings of the situation.
Lastly, the University of Ghent states that it does not blame the student in question but states that it will evaluate the incident so as to learn all possible lessons from it.
(Source: Belga)
