Bruges mayor "out of danger" after neck stabbing

View of Market Square in Bruges, Belgium, Wednesday, May 13, 2020
View of Market Square in Bruges, Belgium, Wednesday, May 13, 2020   -  Copyright  Virginia Mayo/Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved
By Alessio Dellanna  with AFP

Dirk De fauw is "fine", police said, after he was brought to hospital on Saturday. A man has been arrested on attempted murder charges.

The mayor of Bruges, Belgium's Western Flanders capital city, was stabbed in the neck on Saturday.

A man has been arrested, the city's prosecutor told the press.

The 62-year-old mayor and lawyer Dirk De fauw, of the Flemish Christian Democratic Party (CD&V), was taken to hospital for an operation.

He was later reported to be "fine" and "out of danger" by the prosecutor's spokeswoman Céline D'havé.

An investigation on "attempted murder" has been opened and entrusted to an investigating judge.

Local paper Het Laatste Nieuws had initially reported the incident occurred in the morning inside the mayor's law firm building, in the city's Sint-Andries district (Saint-André), alleging that the attacker might be one of the company's clients.

Spokeswoman D'havé seemed to confirm this allegation.

"Stay strong and get well soon!" CD&V's president Joachim Coens tweeted after the incident.

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