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Belgian police find body at attacker's home
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Associated Press
Police in Belgium have found a woman's body at the home of the man believed to have lobbed grenades and fired a hail of bullets into a marketplace in Liege on Tuesday, killing four people, including himself and a toddler, reports say.
The body was found in a shed on the property belonging to Nordine Amrani, 33, Belgian radio reported, citing a justice official.
Reports in Belgian media Wednesday said the body found at the killer's property was that of a 45-year-old cleaner who worked for one of Amrani's neighbours.
"It was found in a shed which he used, notably to grow cannabis," Liege's prosecutor general, Cedric Visart de Bocarme, told Belgian public radio, RTBF.
At the scene of Tuesday's attacks — busy Place Saint-Lambert square, the main entry point to downtown shopping streets in the city in eastern Belgium — the dead included two teenagers, 15 and 17, and a 1½-year-old child hit by a bullet in the back of the neck, RTBF reported.
At least 122 people were injured, some of them critically. A 75-year-old, who was initially counted among the dead on Tuesday, has been taken off the list of dead, even though she is not expected to recover from her wounds, Catherine Delcourt, a spokeswoman for the Liege governor said.
Authorities have been struggling to determine what motivated Amrani to launch his killing spree.
People running, screaming
He had been summoned for questioning by police Tuesday and had a history of weapons and drug offences. Apparently on the way to the station, armed with hand grenades, a revolver and an assault rifle, he stopped at the central square filled with holiday shoppers and lobbed three grenades into the crowd. Then he opened fire.
Justice officials said they were at a loss to explain the reason for the onslaught. The prime minister said it was not related to terrorism.
"I heard a loud boom," said Dimitri Degryse, who was driving near the square. "I thought it was something on my car that was broken or something. Then a few seconds after a second boom, and I saw all the glass breaking, I saw people running, screaming."
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Hundreds fled the square as well as a nearby Christmas market. Video showed people, including a large group of preschoolers, rushing to seek cover, some still carrying shopping bags.
Amrani died at the scene, but Liege prosecutor Danielle Reynders told reporters he was not killed by police. It was unclear if he committed suicide or died by accident, though he still had a number of grenades with him.
The Place Saint-Lambert and the nearby Place du Marche host Liege's annual Christmas market, which features 200 shops and attracts some 1.5 million visitors a year. A nearby Ferris wheel is also a central attraction.
'This is not about terrorism'
By dusk, with the Christmas lights gleaming again, King Albert II and Queen Paola came to pay their respects, as did Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo.
Di Rupo stressed the attack was the act of a lone assailant, a man known to police who had no links to terrorism. "The whole country shares in the pain. This is an isolated case. This is not about terrorism," he said.
Herman Van Rompuy, a former Belgian prime minister who is now president of the European Council, said he was badly shaken by the attack.
"There is no explanation whatsoever," Van Rompuy said. "It leaves me perplexed and shocked."
While such attacks are unusual in Western Europe, the Continent has not been immune to such violence.
There was another deadly shooting Tuesday in Italy, where a man opened fire in an outdoor market in Florence, killing two vendors from Senegal and wounding three other Senegalese before killing himself, authorities said.
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