A man “heavily armed” was spotted in Sint-Pieters-Leeuw, in Belgiumtriggering a terrorism alert it’s a large-scale search of the police: in the end, however, the alleged attacker turned out to be only one young cosplayer, dressed up to attend a comic book fair. This is a fact that reveals a lot about the climate of tension that exists in Belgium, after the attack in Brussels on 16 October in which two Swedes lost their lives.
As the Belgian agency reports, citing the local police, it all started when a resident of the town not far from Brussels posted a message on social media. Photo of the armed young man. “Due to the current high level of terrorist threat, we immediately launched a large-scale search,” said Police Commissioner Wannes Monteyne. “We were able to identify the man from the footage of the cameras closed circuit. His father also came forward.”
However, it was only one false alarm: behind what turned out to be a costume lurked a teenager on his way to one comics fair in the city of Ghent, where many visitors dress up as science fiction or fantasy characters. Hence the warning from the commissioner, which he asked the citizens to Don’t go out in public in a costume of this kind, given the situation the country finds itself in.