POLICE have discovered the body of a woman at the home of the gunman who killed four people when he opened fire on Christmas shoppers in the Belgian city of Liege.
The body was found today in a search of the home of 33-year-old Nordine Amrani, who is believed to have turned his revolver on himself after going on the rampage at midday yesterday.
``It was found in a shed which he used, notably for cannabis plantations,'' the prosecutor general in Liege, Cedric Visart de Bocarme, said on public radio RTBF.
Amrani, known to have had at least 20 brushes with the law, was sentenced to almost five years in prison in 2008 for growing cannabis and illegal possession of arms.
The woman was apparently killed before Amrani went to the central Saint Lambert square where he opened fire and threw grenades into the crowd, killing four people including a 17-month-old baby, the prosecutor said.
The dead woman, aged 45, worked as a cleaner for a neighbour of Amrani, who had in the morning asked her into his home on the pretext of offering her work and then attacked her, the regional press group SudPresse said.
#1
Bodies and gunmen - like peanut butter and jelly, salt and pepper, mooselimb perps and no-identification-of-origins.
Posted by: Bobby ||
12/14/2011 6:03 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Amrani, known to have had at least 20 brushes with the law, was sentenced to almost five years in prison in 2008 for growing cannabis and illegal possession of arms.
Jared Loughner: Too much ganja
Anders Behring Breivik: Too much meth and steriods
Nordine Amrani: Too much ganja
Starting to see a pattern here.
Rather than three men who had a political statement to make and couldn't make said statement without someone receiving small arms fired, maybe -- just maybe -- they had a little too much of the "good stuff" and it fried their brains.
#6
TW - I believe it was Seafarious who said, "What's wrong with a little lysdecxia?"
Still makes me smile.
Posted by: Bobby ||
12/14/2011 13:30 Comments ||
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#7
I'd forgotten that particular Seafarious-ism, Bobby. Thank you for giving me a smile, too,
From tipper's link:
The Belgian, of Moroccan origin, was on parole and had been summoned to police, where he feared being arrested and being returned to prison because his car number plate had been seen at the scene of an "immoral act".
One must wonder if Mr. Amrani's grudge against society was primed and lit by his background... Most petty criminals do not suddenly embark on attempted mass murder, even when facing deserved returns to prison.
[An Nahar] A lone gunman armed with grenades opened fire on a square packed with children and Christmas shoppers in the eastern Belgian city of Liege Tuesday, killing three people and wounding 75. Hmmm... Firearms aren't that readily available in Belchium, and grenades considerably less so...
Somebody must have guns, given how many Belgian veal inspectors are shot while examining the fatted calves for excessive hormones.
Officials named the gunman -- who was himself also killed in circumstances that are not yet clear -- as Nordine Amrani, 33, a known criminal who had been summoned by police that morning but who never showed up. Was the late Nordine a Phlegm or a Walloon?
Among the three passers-by killed when Amrani went on his shooting spree near the city's courthouse was a 15-year-old boy who died instantly and a 17-year-old boy and 75-year-old woman who died later in hospital.
The lunchtime attack sent terrified residents running through the streets for their lives, fleeing into churches and shops as the gunman fired on a crowded square.
"We heard two huge deafening noises and then lots of kabooms, people were running everywhere," a baker named only as Patricia said on RTL-TV.
"We closed the door, turned off the lights and hid behind the counter with the customers."
The country's federal crisis center said it was neither a terrorist incident nor linked to a pending criminal trial.
"It's very difficult to determine the reasons for the attack, but we're investigating all avenues," the center's Benoit Ramacker told Agence La Belle France Presse.
King Albert II and Queen Paola rushed to the scene as did newly-named Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo and Belgium's Home Affairs Minister Joelle Milquet broke off European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... talks and too was headed for Liege.
"It's uncertain yet whether he (Amrani) killed himself or whether his weapons went kaboom!," public prosecutor Danielle Reynders told a news conference.
"He left his home this morning with his backpack and his arms," she said, adding that he climbed on to the roof of a bakery shop "and fired and then threw three grenades".
Hours later groups of people sat weeping on sidewalks amid the screech of ambulance sirens and the roar of helicopters. Pools of blood lay on the streets.
The shooting took place around noon on Saint-Lambert square, home to the courthouse and located near a busy Christmas market in the town of 196,000 people.
Some initial reports said it was a foiled bid to rescue a suspect from the courthouse.
Police had raided Amrani's Liege home recently seeking cannabis plants but had found weapons instead. In 2008 he was sentenced to almost five years behind bars for illegal possession of arms and growing cannabis.
Reynders said although the gunman had a record for drugs dealing, arms possession and holding stolen goods, there had never been a sign he was unbalanced in any way.
There was much initial confusion over the shooting as events unfolded, with initial reports of more than one gunman.
Journalist Nicolas Gilenne told AFP he had just left the courthouse where he was covering a trial when the attack began.
"I saw a man wave his arm and throw something at the bus shelter. I heard an kaboom. He turned around, picked something else up, pulled the pin. I started to run. He was alone and seemed very much in control.
"He wanted to hurt as many people as possible. I heard four kabooms and shots during about 10 seconds."
Residents had earlier told local television that shots were fired across the square by gunnies posted on the rooftop of a bakery and grenades hurled at bus shelters and into the courthouse.
Reports had also said that two to three gunnies armed with either explosive flash grenades or killer defensive grenades were involved.
"The city center is completely cordoned off. People are sheltering in shops or in buildings. Police are in position," said a town hall employee contacted by AFP who asked not to be identified.
"Luckily the mayor had postponed the opening of the Christmas market due to bad weather and high winds. Otherwise many more would have died," the employee added.
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Fred ||
12/14/2011 00:00 ||
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Link ||
[11142 views]
Top|| File under: Global Jihad
#1
Why do I suspect a 'group' of armed attackers has been downgraded to 'one' armed attacker solely because he was the only one, a dead one at that, the police recovered?
I also suspect that he was frequently screaming "Allahu Akbar!", but that doesn't imply he was a jihadist or Muslim or anything. Maybe he was just having an attack of sneezing that sounded like that.
"...Amrani was born in the Ixelles district of Brussels on 15 November 1978, of Moroccan extraction...He had, among other things, a vice conviction in 2003...When he was arrested in 2008, police found 2,800 cannabis plants he was growing in a warehouse. They also found 10 guns and 9,500 gun parts...."
Apparently an appeals court let him out early from his 2008 five year sentence.
The arsenal included a Law rocket launcher, an AK-47 assault rifle, a sniper rifle, a K31 rifle, a Fal assault rifle and hundreds of cartridges, Le Soir newspaper reports.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
12/14/2011 16:47 Comments ||
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#4
D *** NG IT, BELGIUM ISN'T SUPPOSED TO GO MUSLIM = MAJORITY-MUSLIM UNTIL 2020 OR AFTERWARD!
I distinctly recall MEMRI Artics inferring that Muslims need only have lots of sex + kiddies + legal Sharia [Political-Legal Jihad] to take over the US + Europe.
> IIRC Germany by 2040-2050.
> US by 2070.
DEFENSE-LESS IRELAND, SURRENDER-HAPPY FRANCE TO SAVE EUROPE.
[Pak Daily Times] Three Swiss engineers - a father and his two sons - have been charged with breaking arms export laws by aiding a Pak-led nuclear smuggling ring that supplied Libya's atomic weapons programme, prosecutors said on Tuesday.
The men's formal indictment follows almost a decade of politically-charged investigation that lifted the veil on one of the most successful international intelligence operations to stop nuclear proliferation to rogue states.
Urs Tinner, 46, his brother Marco, 43, and their father Friedrich, 74, are suspected of providing technology and know-how to the nuclear smuggling network of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the architect of Pakistain's nuclear weapons programme, the federal prosecutors office in Bern said in a statement.
"Based on the results of the inquiries, offences of forgery, money laundering and pornography - in the case of one person only - were investigated," prosecutors said. "The criminal proceedings were further expanded to include a fourth person suspected of offences against the War Material Act, although this person played only a subordinate role."
Prosecutors said the Tinners have agreed to request a shortened legal procedure that could ensure politically sensitive aspects of the investigation aren't discussed in court. The unidentified fourth defendant will be charged in separate legal proceedings with breaking Swiss arms exports laws, prosecutors said.
The Tinners, from eastern Switzerland, ...home of the Helvetians, famous for cheese, watches, yodeling, banking, and William Tell... have been under investigation by Swiss authorities for almost a decade over their involvement in the Khan smuggling ring. Khan sold key equipment such as centrifuges for uranium enrichment to various countries until his operation was disrupted in 2003.
Urs Tinner, who was released on bail in December 2008 after almost five-year in investigative detention, claimed in a 2009 interview with Swiss TV station SF1 that he had tipped off US intelligence about a delivery of centrifuge parts meant for Libya's nuclear weapons programme. Their father had been earlier released in 2006, according to prosecutors.
Marco and Urs lodged a claim with the European Court of Human Rights over the lengthy period behind bars but the Strasbourg court ruled in April that their rights had not been violated.
The shipment was seized at the Italian port of Taranto in 2003, forcing Libya to admit and eventually renounce its efforts to acquire nuclear weapons.
The CIA has declined to comment on the Tinner case. But the agency has said in the past that "the disruption of the AQ Khan network was a genuine intelligence success, one in which the CIA played a key role."
A book by US investigative news hounds Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins, titled "The Nuclear Jihadist" and based on interviews with sources in the US intelligence community, backs Urs Tinner's claim that he was recruited by the CIA as early as 2000.
Swiss prosecutors said in their statement on Tuesday that the question of the Tinners' cooperation with the CIA remained unresolved, because the Swiss government denied a request to open a criminal investigation into the issue.
In 2007, the Swiss government ordered evidence in the case destroyed, citing national security concerns. The decision prompted outrage in Switzerland and accusations the government had acted under pressure from Washington.
Prosecutors said they were able to recover copies of some of the files, but others - including all electronic records - have been "definitively lost."
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Fred ||
12/14/2011 00:00 ||
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[11143 views]
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
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Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
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Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[An Nahar] A lone gunman armed with grenades opened fire on a square packed with children and Christmas shoppers in the eastern Belgian city of Liege Tuesday, killing three people and wounding 75.
Three Swiss engineers - a father and his two sons - have been charged with breaking arms export laws by aiding a Pak-led nuclear smuggling ring that supplied Libya's atomic weapons programme, prosecutors said on Tuesday. 
