A man in his twenties from Flemish Brabant has been sentenced to 37 months in prison for planning two terror attacks in Belgium, including setting ablaze a mosque and carrying out a mass shooting.
The verdict is in regarding the far-right young Opwijk man in Brussels Court of Appeal, known to Belgian intelligence services since the Covid-19 pandemic for his far-right activities on Telegram groups.
The man has been found guilty of inciting and preparing terror attacks, and the sentence is one month longer than the three-year prison term handed down by the Brussels Criminal Court in 2025, which he had appealed.
In May 2022, an investigation by State Security found that he fitted the profile of a lone-wolf extremist. He was described as a socially isolated, unemployed school dropout who spent his days collecting and spreading far-right propaganda.
His Telegram convos revealed an admiration for far-right murderers: Anders Breivik, Brenton Tarrant and Dylann Roof, whom he regarded as heroes.
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The man wrote a 15-page manifesto in which he outlined his vision of an ethnically homogeneous state. The document promoted antisemitic and anti-Muslim violence. He also shared footage of Tarrant's 2019 attacks in New Zealand.
Federal prosecutors subsequently launched surveillance operations and deployed an undercover police officer to investigate his intentions.
Detectives found that he was planning two attacks: one involving setting a mosque ablaze and another using an automatic rifle to kill as many people as possible.
He contacted someone he believed to be a weapons dealer, who was in fact the undercover police officer sent by detectives and later met him in person.
Police arrested the man in February 2023 after he indicated that he wanted to cooperate with other individuals unknown to detectives.
His lawyers sought an acquittal, arguing that although he held far-right views, he had neither encouraged others to commit an attack nor made concrete plans to carry one out. They also accused detectives of entrapment.
Nonetheless, the Court of Appeal found both charges, incitement to commit a terrorist offence and preparation of a terrorist offence, proven.
According to court spokesperson Annelien Verschaeve, the judges considered the evidence particularly worrying.
The defendant had repeatedly failed to attend court hearings and was living in social isolation with his father, while refusing any form of guidance or support.
The court concluded that the risk of further radicalisation remained and that a suspended sentence was therefore inappropriate, imposing a prison term of 37 months.
