Belgian police arrest Islamist blamed for mini-riot

Belgian police arrested on Thursday an Islamist radical suspected of stoking racial disturbances in Brussels last week triggered by the detention of a woman wearing a banned veil.

Fouad Belkacem, 30, was picked up at home in the northern city of Antwerp, Belgian media reported. Prosecutors refused to give AFP details, but a press conference was planned for later.

The woman stopped for wearing the niqab assaulted officers, police had said, and Sharia4Belgium spokesman Belkacem said at the time that “the devil’s servants who held our sister want to wage war on Muslims, but they won’t win in Belgium.”

In May, Belkacem was sentenced to two years in prison, one suspended, for incitement to racial hatred, but was not jailed. Previously, he had publicly urged Belgian Muslims to join armed jihadists.

The Sharia4Belgium website was inaccessible on Thursday.

The Molenbeek district of Brussels was hit by two nights of street disturbances in the wake of the incident on May 31.