Sam H., the former Belgian soldier arrested in Norway for making death threats against Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, was handed over to the Belgian judicial authorities on Thursday evening, the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office said.
The man will be heard on Friday by the federal judicial police and then by the investigating judge, who will decide on the next steps in the case and whether Sam H should be detained, the prosecutor’s office added.
Sam H. had posted a video on social networks on 7 July showing him firing four shots at a photo of the Prime Minister. The office of the public prosecutor of Limburg, where he lives, immediately opened an investigation, which has since been taken over by the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office.
The police were aware that the man suffered from psychological problems and was sympathetic to extreme right-wing ideas. A member of a motorcycle gang, he had already had run-ins with the law.
In connection with the threats allegedly made by Sam H. against Mr De Croo, a European arrest warrant was issued by a Belgian examining magistrate. The man was located in Norway and eventually arrested in a shopping centre in Oslo, where he had attracted attention because of his attitude, deemed threatening.
His home in Bourg-Léopold was also searched by police but no weapons, ammunition or explosives were found.
Norway handed Sam H. over to the Belgian judicial authorities at around 8 p.m. on Thursday. The facts have been qualified at this stage as preparation of a terrorist offence as well as threatening to commit a terrorist offence, the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office said.
