New details have emerged on the fatal shooting by police of a man in his 40s on the Scheiblerplatz in Eupen on 30 August.
Speaking on Tuesday morning, Andréa Tilgenkamp, spokesperson for the Eupen public prosecutor’s office, said the dead man and his family were Turkish nationals, not Kurdish as previously reported. She also clarified that the other family involved was of Ukrainian, not Russian, origin.
Tilgenkamp said the man had obtained a knife in the time between an argument involving the two fathers, emergency calls to 112 and the arrival of police officers.
When four officers reached the scene, they first tried to speak to the man and persuade him to drop the knife. They also used pepper spray, but it had no effect because of the position of the officer who deployed it.
Still carrying the knife, the man then moved towards the father of the children who had argued earlier that evening with his own children.
Another man stepped in and was injured in the stabbing. Doctors later confirmed the knife wounds.
It was at that point that a police officer fired two shots at the armed man, who later died from his injuries.
Tilgenkamp added that videos in the possession of the police do not show the shooting itself.
The dead man’s relatives have joined the case as a civil party, but have not yet been interviewed since they returned to Turkey for the funeral.
The children who witnessed the events have also not yet been questioned.
