A picture shows a damaged window of the National Institute for Criminalistics and Criminology (INCC-NICC) after an explosion overnight on August 29, 2016 in Neder-Over-Heembeek.
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Arsonists set fire to Belgium’s National Institute of Criminology in Brussels earlier on Monday, causing an explosion but no casualties.
State broadcaster RTBF claimed that a vehicle with two people on board managed to get through the security barriers to the site.
Police have been deployed at the site and the area has been sealed off.
Brussels airport and metro were the targets of an Islamic State bomb attack that killed 32 people in March.
Prosecutors said an investigation was now under way.
RTBF said no one was injured but that damage at the site is significant.
Thick black smoke was seen coming from the laboratories at about 3am this morning and residents reported hearing a loud blast sparking fears of a bomb blast. They also added the attack is probably not linked to terrorism, and is a criminal act.
“It was arson, deliberate arson, at the laboratory of the federal police”, prosecutor Ine Van Wymersch said. “I can not confirm that there was any bomb”.
Van Wymersch said the crime lab, which gathers and analyses evidence, “was not chosen by chance”. Then the two suspects set the auto on fire.
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Bilal Hadfi, who blew himself up outside the Stade de France during last November’s Paris attacks, lived in the suburb.
