Friday January 14, a young man pushed a woman on the rails when the metro arrived, before fleeing.
A tragedy was narrowly avoided. A little before 8 p.m. on the platforms of Rogier station in Brussels, a young man violently and deliberately pushed a woman, who was in front of him, onto the tracks when a metro arrived. The driver was able to perform an emergency brake and narrowly avoid the victim. Several people on the platform had reacted quickly to alert the driver and came to the aid of the woman on the tracks. The perpetrator ran away, but was arrested a few minutes later “thanks to the release of images of the suspect”, reports the Belgian daily The evening.
“The investigation is ongoing to determine the exact circumstances of the facts as well as the motive of the suspect”, assured the deputy prosecutor of the King Sarah Durant, in a press release taken up by the daily. A warrant of arrest has been requested against the individual for “attempted murder”. According to information from CNews, the suspect, a man born in 1998, did not know the victim. She was taken to hospital, but has since been able to return home. She is, just like the conductor of the metro, “shocked” of what happened, assured An Van Hamme, spokesperson for the Belgian transport network STIB. The Brussels Mobility Minister, Elke Van den Brandt, qualified, in a tweet, the gesture of “terrible act of cowardice” and greeted “the alert response of the metro driver who was able to avoid the worst-case scenario”. Despite the sudden stop of the metro, no one was injured among the passengers.
Article written in collaboration with 6medias