Security Guard at Belgian NPP Found Killed with Work Pass Stolen

Belgium's Tihange Nuclear Power Station. Photo source: wikipedia.org

A security officer at a Belgian nuclear power plant has been found murdered with his work pass stolen – a disturbing development in the light of recent terror attacks in Brussels, Belgian newspaper Derniere Heure (DH) reported on Saturday.

The man had been shot dead in the city of Charleroi on Thursday evening and his badge had been stolen, the newspaper revealed. The authorities quickly cancelled his pass.

The investigators were particularly worried by the fact that the badge was giving access to a nuclear facility, DH said. Nuclear power plants are known to be targets for the terrorist network behind Tuesday’s suicide bombings in Brussels and the Paris terror attacks in November 2015, according to the newspaper.

On Thursday, DH had reported the atackers who blew themselves up at Brussels international airport and Maelbeek metro stationtwo days earlier originally considered targeting a nuclear site, but had to change targets after police raids and arrests of suspectedIslamic militants in Belgium made them speed up their plans for terror attacks.

The Belgian newspaper also recalled that on February 17 it had revealed that the director of Belgium’s research and development programme had been spied upon by this terrorist cell.

According to investigators’ information, obtained by DH, the el-Bakraoui brothers, who blew themselves up at the airport and the metro station, were suspected of planting the cameras in front of the house of the chief of Belgian nuclear researches to track his movements.

Belgium’s Interior Minister, Jan Jambon, had not bothered to raise the security level at the country’s nuclear power plants immediately after the newspaper report, DH added. It was not until two weeks later that the military had been deployed at the nuclear power plants.

Belgium operates seven nuclear reactors which produce about half of the country’s electricity. 

 

 

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