Prosecutors confirmed that Mohamed Abrini, a suspect on the run has been taken into custody.
Mohamed Abrini, a key suspect involved in the Paris attacks in November last year has been detained by Brussels police officials, following the detainment of Osama K and three other suspects who supposedly triggered the March metro and airport bombings in Brussels. Officials are still exacting whether Abrini was the third member of the group involved in the Brussels attack, ‘the man in the hat’, who fled the airport. Claimed to be militants of the Islamic State terror group, all of these suspects were involved in one or the other attack.
Investigators who conducted the arrest stated in a press conference that his fingerprints and DNA were discovered in two hideouts in Schaarbeek district in Brussels as well as in a car in Paris, which was used during the lethal attacks. This arrest comes even as the authorities released more footage of the alleged ‘man in the hat’, in order to appeal to the public for help in locating the suspect. The footage shows Abrini communicating with two confirmed suicide bombers from the attacks and leaving the airport premises only a short while before the actual blast.
Meanwhile, Osama Krayem of Sweden and another accused Herve BM were taken into custody after separate raids. Based on the information availale currently, prosecutors have found Osama K of aiding suicide bomber of the Maelbeek station tragedy in Brussels, Khalid el-Bakraoui, in addition to purchasing the two sports bags used in concealing the airport and metro station bombs from a Brussels shopping mall. He allegedly returned from Syria in September, travelling in a boat of migrants entering Greece. Using a fake Syrian passport under the name of Naim Al Ahmed, he was picked up by Salah Abdeslam, another major Paris attack suspect, in Ulm, Germany and transported to Belgium in a rental car on October 3.
An injured man is seen at the scene of explosions at Zaventem airport near Brussels
Moreover, Abrini was apparently shot by a CCTV at a petrol station with Abdeslam only two days prior to the Paris attacks, where 130 people were killed. Abrini, 31, is a Belgian national of Moroccan origin. He wasclose friends with the Abdeslam brothers Salah and Brahim since their childhood in Brussels. Through this connection, the authorities discovered that he had traveled with the two brothers to and from Paris twice between November 10 and 11 in 2015. While Salah was arrested shortly before the Brussels attacks, Brahim blew himself up at Comptoir Voltaire restaurant after shooting several tens of people in the Paris attacks.
Despite the Belgian authorities’ efforts to maintain security and provide justice, two of the suspects from the Brussels attacks still remain unidentified and on the run, while three others killed themselves through suicide bombing.Only Mohamed Abrini has been captured and his exact involvement in the attacks is yet to be ascertained.
Source: BBC
Tags: Mohamed Abrini Paris Attacks Paris attacks suspect
