Six prison guards injured in violent incident in Vorst

The inmate responsible for the attack is the man who was handed a 27-year prison sentence last month on charges of arson. The fire in Anderlecht's Rida mosque killed the imam. How the assailant got hold of the weapon, is still unclear.

"When one of the prison wardens came to take him out of his cell, he suddenly got angry and attacked the guard. Several other prison guards came to his rescue, but the man turned out to be in the possession of a knife, injuring the prison wardens where he could", says Mohammed Bercha of the Christian trades union ACV. 

Laurent Sempot, the spokesman for the Belgian prisons, told the press that four prison guards were allowed to leave hospital after being treated. Two others sustained heavy injuries. One of them was stabbed in the lungs, but he is not in a life-threatening condition.

Vorst prison is running on a skeleton roster since the incident. All the victims have launched a complaint with the judicial authorities.