Around 2 a.m. local time, the perpetrators reportedly rammed a auto through barricades at Belgium’s national crime institute and then set fire to a lab, Teri Shultz reports for NPR from Brussels.
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“The possibility of a terrorist attack has not been confirmed”, Ine Van Wymersch, a spokeswoman for the Brussels prosecutor’s office, said at a news conference. “I can not confirm that there was any bomb”.
A explosion “of criminal origin” at Belgium’s national criminology institute in Brussels early Monday caused a fire and major damage but no casualties, officials said.
The institute assists and advises Belgium’s justice authorities in carrying out their inquiries.
Europe has been on high alert after Islamic State attacks in Paris and Brussels over the past year.
‘So it’s an act that could be linked to (destroying) several files, ‘ Van Wymersch said.
Some 30 firefighters helped put out the resulting fire at the National Institute of Criminology, which media said suffered “significant” damage.
Nobody was injured. Investigators said the suspected arsonists set fire to a laboratory used to analyze DNA samples found at crime scenes. “We have no indications that it was terrorism”.
Fire service spokesman Pierre Meys told Agence France-Presse that the “extremely powerful” blast “was probably not accidental”.
Van Wymersch said the crime lab, which gathers and analyses evidence, “was not chosen by chance; it is an important part of the justice department and deals with sensitive information in connection with several ongoing cases”.
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Belgium has been on high alert after being hit by terror attacks. It is also unclear what has happened to the people who carried out the assault.
