Did ISIS Kill Belgium Nuclear Security Guard? Murder Two Days After Brussels Attacks Ignites Fear Of Nuke Terror
Fears that ISIS in Belgium plans terror attacks against nuclear facilities in the European country were heightened Saturday when a local newspaper in Belgium revealed that a top security guard at a nuclear research facility was mysteriously murdered — just two days after the horrifying terror attacks in Brussels on March 22 that left 31 people dead and hurt about 300 more.
The Brussels attacks have been linked by authorities to the Syria-based terrorist organization ISIS, which had claimed responsibility for carrying out the attacks.
The victim, 45-year-old Didier Prospero, was originally reported in Belgian media to be a security guard at a nuclear power plant in the country, which is home to two such nuclear facilities.
Guard feared ‘killed by terrorists for access badge’ pictured https://t.co/KoYkuGtSHB#news #DidierProspero
— inewsnow (@i_newsnow) March 26, 2016
But later reports said that Prospero actually worked as a guard for a security firm known as G4S, and was employed at a government radioactive elements research facility, where nuclear materials are studied for their possible use in medical equipment.
Early reports also said that whoever killed Prospero stole his security access badge, which would in theory allow the killer to enter the nuclear research facility. The reports increased fear that the ISIS terrorists behind the Brussels attacks were also planning to steal radioactive material for use in a so-called “dirty bomb.”
A “dirty bomb” is a conventional explosive packed with radioactive material which would, once the bomb is exploded, spread over an area causing victims to become sick or even die from radiation exposure.
But experts say that concerns over the effects of a “dirty bomb” are exaggerated.
Prospero was discovered in the bathroom of his home Thursday afternoon — just over 48 hours after the Brussels attacks — by his three children as they returned from school. He had been shot four times, according to media reports. The family dog was also killed in the attack.
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But who killed Prospero – and why? So far, investigators appear puzzled. But that did not stop a prosecutor in Charleroi, a city in the Belgian province of Hainut and near Prospero’s home in Froidchapelle, from attempting to quell fears of ISIS nuclear terrorism by denying that the unsolved murder had any link to terrorist activities.
The Charleroi prosecutor also denied that Prospero’s access badge from the nuclear research facility had gone missing.
But tensions around the killing of Prospero remained high, in light of the revelation by Belgian investigators that video surveillance footage of a high-ranking official at one of Belgium’s nuclear plants was discovered last year in an apartment where a suspected ISIS militant was residing.
The footage turned up during the investigation into the Paris ISIS terror attacks that took place last November.
The following video report from the news site Newsy contains further details of the Belgium nuclear terrorism fears.
Following the Brussels attacks on Tuesday, non-essential employees at one of the country’s two nuclear plants were abruptly sent home and then on Friday, security badges were stripped from several workers at the plant, according to a report in the New York Times.
In 2012, the Times reported, two employees at the Doel nuclear plant left Belgium and joined ISIS in Syria. There, the two men became part of an ISIS military unit comprised mainly of native Belgian jihadists. The unit is believed to have included Abdelhamid Abaaoud, 28-year-old ISIS terrorist believed by authorities to have masterminded the Paris attacks.
Abaaoud was killed in a police raid in the aftermath of the Paris attacks. Whether the two Belgian former nuclear plant workers had given him inside information about the Doel plant is unknown.
One of those men is believed to have died fighting in Syria. The other was convicted of terrorist crimes in 2014 — but released from prison a year later, the Times reported.
But terrorism investigators in Belgium are not involved in the Didier Prospero murder probe, leaving the investigation into the killing of the nuclear security guard to local police.
[Featured Photo By Geert Vanden Wijngaert / Associated Press]
