Brussels station blast suspect shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’: witness

Police officials and firefighters speak on a street outside Gare Centrale in Brussels on June 20, 2017, after an explosion in the Belgian capital. A suspect shouted out "Allahu Akbar" (God is Greatest) before causing an explosion at a Brussels railway station, a witness said. / AFP PHOTO / Emmanuel DUNAND
Police officials and firefighters speak on a street outside Gare Centrale in Brussels on June 20, after an explosion in the Belgian capital. / AFP /

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AFP) — A suspect shouted out “Allahu Akbar” (God is Greatest) before causing an explosion at a Brussels railway station on Tuesday, a witness said.

“I went down to the mezzanine level, someone was shouting. Then he cried ‘Allahu Akbar’, and he blew up a trolley,” Nicolas Van Herrewegen, a railway sorting agent, told reporters.

“I was behind a wall when it exploded. I went down and alerted my colleagues to evacuate everyone. He (the suspect) was still around but after that we didn’t see him.”

Van Herrewegen added: “It wasn’t exactly a big explosion but the impact was pretty big. People were running away.”

He described the suspect as well-built and tanned with short hair, wearing a white shirt and jeans.

Belgium’s national crisis center later said the suspect had been “neutralized” and the situation was under control.

© Agence France-Presse