December 14, 2011

Police find body at Liege attacker's home

LIEGE, Belgium (AP) — The body of a woman has been found in the garage of a grenade-lobbing gunman who killed four people and injured 122 in an attack in the city of Liege, officials said Wednesday.
Liege Prosecutor Daniele Reynders said the body of a woman in her forties had been discovered during a search of Nordine Amrani's property.
Reynders said Amrani, 33, died in Tuesday's attack in an apparent suicide, and he was found with a number of grenades still on him.
"What killed him was a shot in the middle of his forehead," she said.
Two teenage boy students aged 15 and 17, and a 75-year-old woman also died in the attack, while an 18-month-old toddler died Tuesday evening in the hospital, Liege police said. Several people remain in intensive care.
Beyond the dead and injured, Reynders said some 40 people had to be treated for psychological trauma.
It remained unclear what motivated the attack. Reynders said that after searches of Amrani's house terrorism could be excluded as a driving force.
Amrani, who had spent time in jail for offenses involving guns and drugs, had been called in for questioning by police in a sexual abuse case.
Officials said he left his Liege home with a backpack, armed with hand grenades, a revolver and an FAL assault rifle.
He walked alone to a busy downtown square, then got onto a platform that gave him an ideal view of the area below, which was bedecked with a huge Christmas tree and crowded with shoppers.
From there, he lobbed three hand grenades toward a nearby bus shelter, which serves 1,800 buses a day — the explosions sending shards of glass from the shelter across a wide area. He then opened fire upon the crowd.
As soon as the shooting began, hundreds fled the square as well as a nearby Christmas market. Video from the scene showed the crowds, including a large group of children, surging through the city center to seek cover, some still carrying shopping bags.

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