Chemicals Sent to Belgium Targets
Belgian PM Guy Verhofstadt was among the targets

June 4, 2003

Letters containing an arsenic derivative have been sent to Belgium's prime minister, the US embassy and other targets, police say.

A series of at least seven letters containing two chemicals were intercepted by officers.

One was phenarsazine, an arsenic derivative used in rat poison, and the other was hydrazine, used as a rocket propellant, said a Health Ministry spokesman.

One report said hydrazine had also been used as an incapacitating gas during the two world wars.

We're not dealing with a small-time joker  - Health Ministry spokeswoman

The chemicals are said to be capable of causing irritation to the eyes and skin, but not of killing.

"One of the two is quite easy to obtain," said Health Ministry spokeswoman Anne-Francoise Gailly.

"The other is a little bit more unusual, which makes us take this matter all the more seriously, because we're not dealing with a small-time joker."

The letters, seized at mail depots as part of an anthrax screening process, were addressed to the British, Saudi Arabian and US embassies as well as Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt.

Inquiry

Others had been sent to an airport in Ostend, the port authority in Antwerp, a post office and a Brussels court.

There was no immediate word on who might be behind the letters.

The State Prosecutor's Office is investigating a possible connection with Islamic fundamentalists, a spokesman told Belgian news agency Belga.

A trial of 23 suspected al-Qaeda members is in its third week amid tight security. 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2963260.stm