Abdeslam, a French citizen, was arrested in Brussels on March 18 after a four-month manhunt in the wake of the November 13 shooting and suicide bombing rampage by Islamic State militants that killed 130 people in Paris.
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A man authorities believe was one of the ringleaders behind last year’s horrific terror attacks in Paris and may have helped plan this week’s back-to-back bombings in Brussels is refusing to talk to police as raids conducted in the Belgian capital netted three more suspects yesterday. That man was seen in airport surveillance footage walking alongside two of the other suspects shortly before the explosions.
Belgian authorities were working Thursday to investigate how wide a network of attackers who carried out the deadly bombings in Brussels reached, as the state broadcaster reported that a second man likely took part in the subway explosion. His lawyer, Sven Mary, said earlier this week Abdeslam “didn’t know” about this week’s terror attacks ahead of time.
Images of the fifth suspect have not been released. Abdeslam was arrested on March 18 in the Molenbeek district of Brussels, after his fingerprints were found in a March 15 raid on an apartment rented under a false name by Khalid El Bakraoui, one of the Brussels bombers. That, the newspaper said, was more than a year before Belgium issued a notice for his arrest.
This undated handout photo from the Belgian federal police shows Brussels suicide bomber Najim Laachraoui.
In France, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said a French national who appeared to be at an advanced stage of planning a terrorist attack was arrested north of Paris. Prosecutors say his brother Ibrahim, 29, had been one of two men who blew themselves up at Brussels airport in the coordinated attacks on Tuesday.
The taxi driver who drove the Brussels suicide bombers to the airport was not allowed to touch their explosives-laden bags and they sat in silence during the commute.
On Monday, a day before the Brussels attacks, the Belgian prosecutor said Laachraoui had traveled to Syria in February 2013.
As for reassuring the nervous Belgian public, the prime minister said that there would be “no grey areas” in the investigation and hunt for more terrorists.
The El Bakraoui brothers were two of the three suicide attackers Tuesday in Brussels.
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The suspect was linked to the double bomb blasts at Belgium’s airport or the blast an hour later at a downtown metro station that killed 31 and injured 300 on Tuesday.
