Another Tragedy Hijacked by Rightwing Groups

In Liege Belgium tragedy struck as another European city became the victim of the extremely violent and bloody actions of one disturbed individual.

The culprit Nordine Amrani aged 33.


From the BBC

"A gunman has opened fire in the centre of the Belgian city of Liege, killing at least four people and wounding 123.

The man also threw grenades into a crowded square from a rooftop before killing himself, reports say.

He was named as Nordine Amrani, aged 33. He was known to police for firearms offences. Officials said the attacker acted alone, ruling out terrorism."

Pay attention to that last sentence its important. Now as I've said previously definitions of Terrorism are pretty varied but one thing they do have one common variant a political motivation. And since Nordine Amrani was acting alone that makes less likely. I think the authorities are being a bit presumptuous by ruling it out on that ground alone. Since there was another recent case of a lone "soldier" carrying out a violent attack in a peaceful European nation, and that definitely had a political motive what with Mr Breivik's Manifesto, and explicit political targets the Labour party Youth Section.

However at present no political motive has been found in this case so this one might be better placed in the serial killer/lone gun nut category. But only time will make that clear.

What is already clear though, is just like Breivik's criminal actions in Norway there victims weren't even treated or collected before people with agenda's pounced on there trauma to use this incident as further evidence for the hysterical theories. Amrani as both his name and mugshot show is of North African/Arabic descent. Moroccan to be exact, and you can probably guess what conclusions certain people on the more extreme end of the political spectrum drew from this one. Yes they claimed this was another attack by Muslim Fundamentalists as part of a global Jihad. Hell they claimed that about the attacks in Oslo and Breivik is blonde and blue eyed and quite stereotypically Scandinavian.

So its not really surprising a Moroccan with an Arabic sounding name would also have his actions added to the bandwagon. But as with Breivik the screaming of "Jihad" were at best premature and at worst outright despicable.

From the Telegraph*


"What worried him most was to be jailed again. According to my client it was a set-up by people who wanted to harm him. Mr Amrani had a grudge against the law. He thought he had been wrongfully convicted."

Persecution complex and vague ideas about a conspiracy.

"A search last night revealed in a warehouse used by the attacker, notably to grow cannabis, the body of a woman killed by the attacker before he went to the Place St Lambert," said Cedric Visart de Bocarme, a Liegeois prosecutor."

Cannabis like all forms of mind altering substances like alcohol is against Islamic custom.

And finally.

"His family lawyer, Abdelhadi Amrani in Brussels, who is not related to the killer, said that he had grown up in foster homes after being orphaned at an early age.

Miss Amrani, the lawyer, dismissed any possible terrorist motives for the attack. "He did not feel at all Moroccan. He did not speak a word of Arabic and was not Muslim. What he said is that he felt a Belgian," she said. "He was crazy about weapons but as a collector. He felt he had not had much luck in life and felt unfairly treated by the courts. This was a 'ras-le-bol' of a tormented soul: estranged from justice, and against society."

Emphasis my own.








Oh and in Italy there was a also a shooting by one Gianluca Casseri (50) killing two and injuring two more, -they were African migrants- in the city Florence.Gianluca Casseri is a white Italian with links to far right groups (though they have distanced themselves from the man) in response the Iitalian President Giorgio Napolitano had this to say.

"Italy's President Giorgio Napolitano denounced "this blind explosion of hatred" and called on Italian authorities and society to "nip in the bud every form of intolerance and reaffirm the tradition of openness and solidarity in our country".

So it looks like we have another case of violence criminality bringing out two heads of the same beast. I personally think that to take a genuine tragedy like Leige, or Oslo and then deliberately lie about facts of these cases that don't fit the agenda being advanced in order to raise hysteria and fear to be abhorrent and shows those who engage in such practices to be intellectually and morally bankrupt.

Again I extend my condolences to the victims of both these attacks and wish the injured a speedy recovery its a shame that one person with issues and a gun can cause so much hurt.



* For those outside the UK, the Telegraph is a paper so slavishly supportive of the British Conservative Party that it has the nickname "Torygraph".