Suspect in Antwerp bus stabbing arrested on suspicion of murder and attempted murder

The question is being asked of why anyone would stab a complete stranger on a bus without altercation or fight having proceeded the stabbing. All we know about the suspect thus far is that a couple of hours prior to the stabbing he caused trouble in a corner shop a couple of kilometres away. 

The incident took place at around 2:30pm on Monday aboard a 36 bus that was travelling along the Ernest Claesstraat on Antwerp’s Left Bank. A 76-year-old man was stabbed to death. The emergency services tried to revive the man, but he died at the scene. The victim lived nearby and it appears that he was chosen at random.

A 63-year-old man tried to intervene but was also stabbed. However, his injuries are not life-threatening. The driver of the bus required hospital treatment for shock.  

After the incident, the suspect got off the bus, but was detained straight away by officers from the Antwerp Local Police Service’s Rapid Response Team. The police were at the scene sp quickly as they had received a tip-off that someone was acting strangely on the bus.  

The CCTV images show how cool and calculated the suspect appears to act. He gets off the bus, walks to the back of the vehicle and puts his hands up 

VRT News now has more information about the suspect’s movements in the hours prior to the stabbing. At around midday he went into a corner shop a couple of kilometres from where the stabbing took place. He took two cans of Red Bull out of a fridge and refused to pay for them. He said in English "I don't have money" and "Call the police". 

He then proceeded to threaten another customer that spoke to him about his behaviour. "What is the problem, do you want to fight?" he reportedly said. The shopkeeper is then reported to have said that it wasn’t worth it for 2 cans of Red Bull. The shopkeeper says that the man had “a strange look in his eyes” and that he looked “wound up”. She is very distressed about what happened a couple of hours after the incident in her shop.

What happened between 12:08pm, when the incident occurred in the shop and the stabbing on bus 36 is still unclear. The shopkeeper called the police, but they were unable to catch the man. 

The suspect is 38 years’ old and of Georgian descent. There is still no information about whether he has mental health issues. After the stabbing he was examined by a psychiatrist. There is no indication that the motive for the attack was terrorism, which begs the question of what drives a person to stab a random stranger to death aboard a bus on a Monday afternoon in Antwerp. The suspect’s lawyer says that her client is cooperating fully with the enquiry.