Belgium’s Federal Prosecution Office said Sunday that the terror group behind multiple blasts in Brussels last month had initially planned to launch an attack on France.
Advertisement
The Belgian terror cell that killed scores of Parisians in November was planning a second wave of attacks in France, but switched gears to Brussels due to Salah Abdelslam’s capture.
Mohamed Abrini, the so-called “man in a hat” seen in CCTV footage from Brussels airport, was arrested on Friday and admitted to having participated in the Brussels airport bombings.
The statement came after police charged Mohamed Abrini, a key suspect in the Paris and Belgium attacks, with involvement in the Brussels attacks.
Investigations into the Islamic State attacks in Paris, which killed 130 people, showed that numerous perpetrators lived in Belgium, including surviving suspects who managed to evade police for more than four months.
The terrorists who carried out the March 22 attacks on the Brussels airport and metro had initially planned an attack on France instead, the Belgian federal prosecutor announced Sunday.
He also said that a suspect arrested earlier – identified only as Osama K.by authorities – was from Sweden, providing partial confirmation that the man is Osama Krayem from the Swedish city of Malmo.
It said two people arrested with Abrini were released following a “thorough investigation”.
All of the known suspects from the attacks are now detained or dead.
It appears that the 31-year-old man returned to central Brussels to get rid of his hat and coat after he walked off the destroyed departure hall of the Brussels airport.
Brussels was hit by suicide bombings at the airport and on the Metro which killed 32 victims and wounded 270. Abrini and three others were charged with “terrorist murders” and conducting the “activities of a terrorist group” in connection with the Brussels attacks. Abrini’s fingerprints and DNA were found in two “safe houses” in Brussels, as well as in a auto used during the Paris attacks. M.as a Rwandan citizen arrested at the same time as Krayem and accused him of offering assistance to both Abrini and Krayem.
“There are perhaps other cells that are still active on our territory”, Belgian Interior Minister Jan Jambon cautioned on RTL television on Saturday.
The weekend’s developments represent a rare success for Belgian authorities, who have been repeatedly criticized for bungling the bombings investigation.
Advertisement
The charges follow a string of arrests that have shed light on the links between the IS terror network believed to be behind the Paris and Brussels attacks.
