Moroccan Inmate Attacks Guard in Belgian Prison Amid Deportation Fears

The victim, injured in the neck and mouth during a workshop in the prison, was allowed to leave after being treated, reports Het Nieuwsblad. She would not have been able to testify if her colleagues had not intervened in time to subdue the aggressor. A repeat offender, Hassan Hamdaoui had also attacked a prison staff member the previous week and had been isolated before returning to work in the workshop on Tuesday. "He acted out of anger because he feared losing his Belgian nationality. He had already said and repeated it," some sources confided.

Declared unbalanced by several forensic psychiatric experts, he was listed as a dangerous terrorist. When he learned of the deprivation of Belgian nationality of his brother Abdelghabar Hamdaoui with whom he had gone to Syria in 2013, he had become afraid and feared suffering the same fate.

At 39, Hassan Hamdaoui was sentenced to 12 years in 2014 for his terrorist activities related to the Chechen network. He was also sentenced to an additional two years in prison at the end of a second trial for membership in a terrorist organization. At the head of the Arab-Chechen network, he recruited fighters for Chechnya and Grozny before its dismantling in 2009 in Belgium. He had also tried to finance terrorists in Saudi Arabia to carry out attacks in Belgium, notably against NATO headquarters in Brussels and against the Jewish community.

Arrested, the one his accomplices call "the terror of the Place Saint-Jean" was taken in for questioning by the special units of the Ghent police. He should be moved to another cell, we are told.