Belgian psychiatric patient fatally shot by police

Belgian police opened fire Tuesday on a psychiatric patient said to have become aggressive and to have seized a knife, fatally wounding him, prosecutors said.

According to a statement from the Brussel's prosecutor's office, police were called to a private psychiatric clinic in the southern suburbs of the city when staff reported that a patient had become aggressive.

The 49-year-old was taken for treatment in a Brussels hospital with wounds to the arm and abdomen after the incident, but did not survive.

A first patrol at the scene had called for reinforcement after failing to calm the situation, the prosecutor's office said.

"During the course of the operations, the intervening police officers were forced to use their service weapons. The person was hit in the arm and then in the abdomen," the office said.

The family of the deceased has been informed and an investigation has been launched to establish the exact circumstances of the death.