A man in his 20s from the Flemish Brabant municipality of Opwijk has been sentenced to 3 years’ imprisonment for planning 2 terrorist attacks. The man had planned to burn down a mosque and in a second attack to shoot dead as many people as possible with an assault rifle.
In 2022 the federal prosecutor’s office began investigating the man after he had been brought to their attention by the security services. The man was active on the messaging service Telegram. The investigation found evidence that he had incited others to carry out terrorist attacks. Further investigation revealed that the man admired mass murderers such as Anders Breivik and Brenton Tarrant.
In 2019 Brenton Tarrant murdered more than 50 Muslims in 2 attacks on mosques in the New Zealand city of Christchurch. Anders Breivik killed nearly 80 people in 2011. He first of all set off a bomb in the Norwegian capital Oslo before opening fire on dozens of young people that were attending a summer camp on the island of Utøya.
Manifesto
Like Anders Breivik the young man from Opwijk had written a manifesto. Although it was just 15 pages long “His intentions and ideas were very clear. He wanted to create the ‘Ideal Empire’ in which race is more important than religion. He called for the setting up of an ethnonational state”, the prosecution said.
The man also had plans to carry out 2 terrorist attacks. The federal prosecutor’s office decided to use an undercover detective. The detective met up with the man at a carpark in Opwijk. They had a conversation about using firearms.
Hate and division
The court passed a sentence of 3-years suspended on the man, who did not attend the trial. When passing sentence the judge said. “The offences the defendant is accused of pose a real danger to our society and its citizens. He was sowing hate and division”.
Defence lawyer Jan Donckers spoke of entrapment on the part of the undercover detective. He added that "I will discuss with my client whether we will appeal."