Salah Abdeslam, the prime surviving suspect in November’s Paris attacks, will no longer fight extradition to France as he had vowed to do but instead now wants to return to “explain himself”, his lawyer said on Thursday.
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So-called Islamic State (IS) has said it was behind both attacks.
Police have identified Belgian national Ibrahim El Bakraoui and his brother, Khalid El Bakraoui, as two of the suicide bombers responsible for Tuesday’s attack.
Authorities have identified a suicide bomber who hit the Brussels subway, but are also investigating who else may have participated in that attack.
He is also believed to have travelled to Hungary previous year with Abdeslam and one other person in a Mercedes, which was checked by guards at the Austria-Hungary border and allowed to go on.
A different Belgian security source said that Khalid El Bakraoui, specifically, rented that apartment and that he and his brother had ties to the November 13 carnage in Paris.
If it’s confirmed then Belgian intelligence services will no doubt come under increased scrutiny for failing to track them down before Tuesday’s attack.
Investigators raided the Brussels neighborhood of Schaerbeek after the attacks and found a computer in a trash can on the street including a note from Ibrahim El Bakraoui saying he felt increasingly unsafe and feared landing in prison.
“The third man is on the run; he left his bag with the biggest bomb in it, which exploded later because it was so unstable”.
Belgium has declared three days of mourning and yesterday hundreds of airport staff and their families carried candles and flowers in a silent march and vigil near Zaventem. Asked if his client had prior knowledge about Tuesday’s suicide bombings at Brussels airport and on a metro train, lawyer Sven Mary said in English: “He didn’t know it”.
Belgian prosecutors a year ago said Abrini was driving the same Renault Clio vehicle that was later used by the attackers in the French capital.
“There are still a number of people possibly involved in the attacks still in our country… who still pose a threat”, he said.
The man, who has not yet been identified, was seen in surveillance at the Brussels Airport and is believed to have been involved in the series of explosions Tuesday that killed at least 34 people and injured 230.
Laachraoui was already being hunted by police when the series of co-ordinated attacks killed 31 people and left another 61 injured in the Belgian capital.
Belgian broadcaster RTBF says the el-Bakraoui brothers were known to police and had criminal records, but no history of terrorist activity.
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Laachraoui was a former pupil at the Institut de la Sainte-Famille d’Helmet Catholic school in the Schaerbeek area of Brussels and an electro-mechanics graduate, according to Belgian newspaper La Libre. Belgian officials, however, cautioned that it would have been hard for the terrorists to put together such a sophisticated attack on short notice.
