Bomb blast hits Brussels’ criminology institute, no casualties reported

“One or more” defendants then allegedly detonated a bomb near the laboratories.

Brussels has been on edge since a terror attack March 22 that killed 32 people and wounded more than 300.

The Criminal institute is linked to Belgium’s federal justice body.

About 30 firefighters assisted in putting out the blaze, which caused “significant damage” to the building, local media reported. No casualties were reported at the laboratory, which is believed to have been empty at the time.

The prosecutor’s office described the incident as much more likely to be an arson attack created to destroy criminal evidence.

Belgium’s police and army have been deployed in large numbers since the suicide bomb attacks in Paris last November that left 130 dead. “It’s a criminal act”, Ine Van Wymersch, spokeswoman of the Brussels prosecutor’s office, was quoted as saying by Reuters.

Police said that it was probably an arson attack on the crime lab.

RTBF television said two suspects rammed a vehicle into the institute grounds and threw an incendiary device at it.

“It is a path we are looking down”, she said, referring to the possibility of militant involvement. The Islamic State group had claimed responsibility for the attack.

She said it was not yet clear how they started the fire.

Among its tasks is to carry out scientific analyses linked to criminal cases and to study the functioning of the penal system.