But the perpetrators were “surprised by the speed of the progress in the ongoing investigation” and made a decision to rush an attack on Brussels instead, the office said in a statement.
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Belgian-Moroccan terror suspect Mohamed Abrini was charged Sunday with “terrorist murders” over the deadly Brussels attacks, after being indicted on the same charges Saturday for his role in last year’s Paris massacre.
He has been charged with participation in terrorist activities, terrorist murders and attempts to commit terrorist murders, the prosecutor’s office said.
Two others rounded up in recent raids around Brussels have been released, the office said in a statement.
Abrini’s arrest Friday in the gritty Brussels neighbourhood of Anderlecht marked an important step forward in the investigation into the November 13 Paris attacks in which 130 died and the March 22 attacks which left 32 dead in Brussels.
Despite multiple arrests, Brussels remains under the second-highest terror alert, meaning an attack is considered likely.
Abrini, believed to be the lone surviving suspect in the March 22 attack on the airport, is seen in surveillance images wearing a dark hat and a light-colored jacket, rolling luggage carts with two men it is now believed were suicide bombers.
Authorities have been frantically seeking the “man in the hat” ever since he was filmed alongside the two bombers just before the airport attack that killed 16 people.
Local television stations aired footage purportedly of Abrini’s arrest, showing a man pinned to the ground by several armed plain-clothed police who then bundled him into an unmarked auto.
Two Belgian news organizations, L’Echo and the Belgian broadcaster RTBF reported Saturday that Abrini has confessed to being the “man in the hat” from surveillance video.
Swedish officials had no immediate comment on Krayem.
Krayem had earlier been identified posting photos from Syria on social media, according to Magnus Ranstorp, a counterterrorism expert at the Swedish National Defense College.
Prosecutors also confirmed Abrini’s connection to the Brussels airport attack.
“He also tried to recruit people in Malmo”, Ranstorp told The Associated Press.
The person on the other end of the line asked Boulahcen to find a vehicle and pick someone up in an industrial zone on the outskirts of Paris.
Yesterday’s announcement was a major victory for Belgian authorities, though they are still bracing for another attack, with Belgian Interior Minister Jan Jambon saying: “There are perhaps other cells that are still
active in our territory”.
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