Nordine Amrani, a “Belgian”, armed himself with grenades and a Kalashnikov an FAL and went on a rampage in Liège, attacking random folks at the bus stop at the busy Place Saint-Lambert at lunchtime.
Apparently it is not hard for a convicted felon to get weapons and to stay in the country:
Nordine Amrani was sentenced to 58 months in prison in 2008 after a search of his home in the rue Bonne Nouvelle in Liège discovered 9,500 weapon parts, 10 complete weapons and 2,800 cannabis plants.
The motive is unclear, and the attacker killed himself, but there are some obvious suggestions:
The attack came a day after the Belgian court sentenced four members of a Pakistani family to prison for the murder of their law student daughter and sister in the country’s first “honour killing” trial. The Daily Telegraph initially reported that the Karachi Post in Pakistan claimed that the attack was linked to a sentence in an honour killing case. It said the parents of Sadia Sheikh were sentenced on Monday when there had been a bomb alert in the court but this has not been confirmed by any Belgian authority or media, and the claim was not repeated in updated reports.
Addendum: Apparently Twitter user @Karachi_Post simply asserted the honor-killing angle. Also, Nordine does not appear to be Pakistani, but Moroccan, with Belgian citizenship.
Another addendum: It looks like he killed a cleaning lady before heading out for his rampage, armed with an FAL, a revolver, and some grenades.