Tag Archives: Belgium

Captured Paris attacks suspect ‘worth weight in gold’ to police, lawyer says

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The only suspected participant in Nov. 13 Paris attacks to be captured alive has been cooperating with police investigators and is “worth his weight in gold”, his lawyer said on Monday.

Belgium’s Interior Minister Jan Jambon said the country was on high alert for a possible revenge attack following the capture of 26-year-old Salah Abdeslam in a flat in Brussels on Friday.

“We know that stopping one cell can …push others into action. We are aware of it in this case,” he told public radio.

French investigator Francois Molins told a news conference in Paris on Saturday Abdeslam had admitted to investigators he had wanted to blow himself up along with others at the Stade de France on the night of the attack claimed by Islamic State; but he later backed out.

Abdeslam’s lawyer Sven Mary said he would sue Molins for making the comment public, calling it a violation of judicial confidentiality.

Mary said Abdeslam was now fully cooperating with investigators.

“I think that Salah Abdeslam is of prime importance for this investigation. I would even say he is worth his weight in gold. He is collaborating. He is communicating. He is not maintaining his right to remain silent,” Mary told Belgian public broadcaster RTBF.

MORE OPERATIONS PLANNED?

As the only suspected participant or planner of the Paris attack in police custody, Abdeslam would be seen by investigators as a possible major source of information on others involved, in support networks, finance and links with Islamic State in Syria. There would also be urgent interest in finding out what further attacks might be planned.

Belgian prosecutors said in a statement they were looking for Najim Laachraoui, 25, using the false name of Soufiane Kayal. His DNA had been found in houses in Belgium used by the Paris attackers.

Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders said on Sunday that Abdeslam may have been plotting more operations drawing on a weapons discovered in the Forest district of Brussels and a network of associates.

Jambon said he could not confirm that, but it was a possibility.

“After 18 months of dealing with this terrorist issue, I have learned that when the terrorists and weapons are in the same place, and that’s what we saw in Forest, we are close to an attack. I’m not saying it is evidence. But yes, there are indications,” he said.

Reynders said Belgium and France had so far found around 30 people involved in the gun and bomb attacks on bars, a sports stadium and a concert hall in the French capital.

(Reporting By Jan Strupczewski and Barbara Lewis; editing by Ralph Boulton)

Fugitive from Paris attacks arrested in Brussels shootout

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The most-wanted fugitive from November’s Paris attacks was arrested after a shootout with police in Brussels on Friday, Belgium’s prime minister said.

Charles Michel described the capture of 26-year-old French suspect Salah Abdeslam and two others as “a very important result in the battle for democracy”. French President Francois Hollande said he was confident they had links to Syria and to Islamic State which claimed the attacks that killed 130 people.

“The threat level is very high,” said Hollande, who was in Brussels for an EU summit. He added that it was now clear many more people had been involved in the Paris attacks on a sports stadium, bars and cafes and concert hall than had been realized.

Michel said Abdeslam was wounded — local media said he was shot in the leg — in the operation launched as EU leaders met on the other side of the city to discuss Europe’s migration crisis. U.S. President Barack Obama sent his congratulations.

Television footage showed armed security forces dragging a man with a sack on his head out of a building and into a car.

“We got him,” Belgian government minister Theo Francken said on Twitter.

Hollande said France wanted to extradite Abdeslam, who was born and raised in Brussels to a Moroccan immigrant family, and hoped he would yield more clarity about an operation mounted by Syria-based Islamic State in which all the known attackers died.

Several bursts of gunfire rang out earlier in the capital’s Molenbeek area – Abdeslam’s home neighborhood and the scene of past investigations into the Paris attacks – and police officers surrounded an apartment block there from around 4 p.m. (1500 GMT).

Two explosions were heard after the arrest, though it was unclear whether they were part of a new operation or the clear-up. Some four hours later, the main police presence had stood down but crime scene investigators were still at work.

There had long been speculation about whether Abdeslam had stayed in Belgium or managed to flee to Syria. Security services will be seeking information from Abdeslam on Islamic State plans and structures, his contacts in Europe and Syria and support networks and finance.

Hollande said he was sure Abdeslam, whose elder brother blew himself up at a Parisian cafe on Nov. 13, had also been in the city that night and had helped plan the attack.

FINGERPRINTS

Belgian police had found fingerprints belonging to Abdeslam at the scene of an apartment raided on Tuesday, prosecutors said.

The Belgian federal prosecutor’s office also said an Algerian killed during that earlier operation was probably one of the people French and Belgian investigators were seeking in relation to the attacks in Paris.

Public broadcaster RTBF said it had information that Abdeslam, whose elder brother blew himself up in Paris, was “more than likely” one of two men who police had said evaded capture at the scene before a sniper shot dead 35-year-old Belkaid as he aimed a Kalashnikov.

It said Belkaid was the man known to police as Samir Bouzid who has been sought since December when police issued CCTV pictures of him wiring cash from Brussels two days after the Paris attacks to a woman who was then killed in a shootout with police in the Paris suburb of St. Denis.

She was a cousin of Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a Belgian who had fought in Syria and is suspected of being a prime organizer of the attacks in which 130 people were killed. Both died in the apartment in St. Denis on Nov. 18.

France’s BFM television said the fingerprints were found on a glass in the apartment, where four police officers, including a Frenchwoman, were wounded when a hail of automatic gunfire hit them through the front door as they arrived for what officials said they had expected to be a relatively routine search.

Abdeslam’s elder brother was among the suicide bombers who killed themselves in Paris. The younger Abdeslam was driven back to Brussels from Paris hours later.

Belgian authorities are holding 10 people suspected of involvement with him, but there had been no report of the fugitive himself being sighted.

Investigators believe much of the planning and preparation for the November bombing and shooting rampage in Paris was conducted in Brussels by young French and Belgian nationals, some of whom fought in Syria for Islamic State.

The attack strained relations between Brussels and Paris, with French officials suggesting Belgium was lax in monitoring the activities of hundreds of militants returned from Syria.

Hollande and Michel took pains to exchange mutual compliments to their security services and cross-border cooperation.

Brussels, headquarters of the European Union as well as Western military alliance NATO, was entirely locked down for days after the Paris attacks for fear of a major incident there. Brussels has maintained a high state of security alert since then, with military patrols a regular sight.

(Additional reporting by Francesco Guarascio and Jan Strupczewski; Writing by Alastair Macdonald and Andrew Heavens; Editing by Ralph Boulton and Alastair Macdonald)

Algerian named as dead Brussels gunman, manhunt goes on

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Belgian prosecutors on Wednesday named a 35-year-old Algerian as the man shot dead by police on Tuesday during a police raid on a Brussels apartment in the hunt for clues to bloody attacks in Paris last November.

Police found an Islamic State flag in the apartment used by Mohamed Belkaid and two others suspected of being with him after officers were met with a barrage of automatic weapons fire as they arrived to search the flat.

Belkaid, who was living in Belgium illegally and had a police record for theft but was not on security watchlists, was killed by a special forces sniper after a three-hour siege. A manhunt for the two other suspects continued on Wednesday.

The government held its alert status steady at Level Three, one step below the maximum.

The prosecutors said a radical Islamic text was found next to Belkaid’s body and a cache of ammunition was also discovered. It was not clear if he had any links to the Paris suspects.

Two people detained overnight on suspicion of links to the shootout in the suburb of Forest were released without charge.

Investigators believe much of the planning and preparation for the Nov. 13 shooting and bombing rampage in Paris that killed 130 people was conducted in Brussels by young French and Belgian nationals, some of whom fought as militants in Syria.

Ten people are being held in Belgian custody on a variety of charges relating to the four-month investigation, though prime suspects, including Salah Abdeslam, a brother of one of the Paris suicide bombers, are suspected of having fled the country.

SHOOTOUT

On Tuesday, six Belgian and French police officers arrived to search the flat and came under automatic fire through a door from at least two people barricaded inside. Four officers, one of them a Frenchwoman, were wounded, none very seriously.

Ministers said the police visit to the apartment had not been expected to provide much new evidence and that the presence of French officers did not imply a major break in the case.

Prime Minister Charles Michel said he was holding the state of alert steady after a meeting of security and intelligence chiefs in Belgium’s national security council .

Brussels, headquarters of the European Union as well as Western military alliance NATO, was entirely locked down for days shortly after the Paris attacks because of fears of a major incident there. The city has maintained a high state of security alert since then, with military patrols a regular occurrence.

Belgium, with a Muslim population of about 5 percent among its 11 million people, has Europe’s highest rate of citizens joining Islamist militants in Syria.

People living in the quiet neighborhood of Forest suffered hours of lockdown on Tuesday and voiced shock at the events.

Schoolboy Maxime, 11, was at home sick when he heard gunfire and helicopters and saw masked commandoes on a rooftop. “They had a huge weapon,” he said, adding he was “very, very scared”.

(Additional reporting by Miranda Alexander-Webber; Editing by Alastair Macdonald and Tom Heneghan)

Belgian army to protect nuclear sites, interior ministry says

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Belgium has ordered its military to protect nuclear sites such as power plants in the country to safeguard them against possible militant attacks, the country’s interior ministry said on Friday.

Some 140 soldiers will be mobilized to protect locations such as Belgium’s two nuclear power plants at Tihange and Doel as well as nuclear research and storage facilities, a spokesman for the interior ministry said.

“We are setting up a special police unit for this sort of security task but that will take some time for it to be operational,” the spokesman said, adding that the army would take over in the meantime.

In February, Belgian investigators searching houses linked to suspects in the Islamist militant attacks in Paris last November found a video tracking movements of a man linked to the country’s nuclear industry.

The spokesman said there was no direct link between the discovery of the video and the decision to take the additional security measures.

(Reporting by Robert-Jan Bartunek; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Belgium charges suspect allegedly tied to Paris attacks, releases another

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Belgium charged a man detained this week with terrorist offenses linked to the Paris attacks and released another held for three weeks due to lack of evidence, federal prosecutors said on Friday.

A judge determined that Zakaria J., born in 1986 and detained on Wednesday, should be kept in custody for a further week on charges of terrorist murder and participation in the activities of a terrorist group.

A second man detained this week, Mustafa E., was released.

A Belgian court also ordered on Friday the release from custody of one of 10 people previously charged with involvement in the Paris attacks due to insufficient evidence against him.

Ayoub Bazarouj, 22, was detained after a search of his house on Dec. 30 and charged the next day with terrorist murder and participation in a terrorist organization. Bazarouj’s lawyer Yannick De Vlaemynck said he had been freed without conditions.

Many of those being held in Belgium are charged with having aided Salah Abdeslam, a former Brussels resident who was in Paris on the night of the Nov. 13 attacks in which 130 people were killed.

“He knew of Salah Abdeslam as he lived in the area, but he was not a friend and there are no elements showing that he provided help in any way,” De Vlaemynck said.

Belgium has been at the heart of investigations into the attacks as four of the Paris suicide bombers had either been living in Belgium or were Belgian-Moroccans. Belgian investigators are also looking for two fugitives, notably Abdeslam, whose brother was one of the suicide attackers.

(Reporting By Philip Blenkinsop and Robert-Jan Bartunek; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Belgium detains two more suspects over Paris attacks

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Belgium has arrested two more men suspected of links to the Paris attacks on Nov. 13 in which 130 people were killed, the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office said on Thursday.

The men, identified as Belgian national Zakaria J., born in 1986 and Moroccan national Mustafa E., born in 1981, were arrested during two house searches on Wednesday and Thursday morning in the Brussels district of Molenbeek, prosecutors said.

“Both were arrested due to their possible ties with different suspects in this case,” the prosecutor’s office said in a statement. “The Investigating Judge will decide later today upon their possible further detention.”

No arms or explosives were found during the searches, it added.

Since the November Paris attacks federal prosecutors have already taken 10 people into custody over their suspected involvement, which appear to have been prepared mainly in Belgium.

If the two latest detainees are kept in custody, their number would rise to 12.

Last week, investigators said a number of the Paris attackers used two apartments and a house in Belgium as possible safe houses in the weeks leading up to their coordinated shooting and suicide bomb assault on the French capital.

They also found a possible bomb factory for the Paris attacks in the Brussels district of Schaerbeek, with traces of explosives.

(Reporting by Jan Strupczewski; Editing by Alissa de Carbonnel and Dominic Evans)

Morocco arrests Belgian national allegedly tied to Paris attackers

RABAT (Reuters) – Moroccan authorities have arrested a Belgian national of local origin directly linked to the attackers who carried out the Paris shootings and bombings in November that killed 130 people, the government said in a statement on Monday.

The interior ministry gave only the suspect’s initials in Arabic and said he fought in Syria with al-Nusra front before joining the Islamic State.

The suspect, whose initials could be translated to J.A. or G.A., was arrested on Jan. 15 in the city of Mohammedia, the statement added. “He went to Syria with one of the suicide bombers of Saint Denis,” it said.

Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a 28-year-old Belgian militant who authorities said was the ringleader of the Paris attacks, was killed with other suspects days after when police raided a house in the Saint Denis suburb.

Investigations showed that during his stay in Syria he has built solid ties with Islamic State leaders including the ringleader of the Paris attacks.

The suspect was trained to handle different weapons and guerrilla tactics but left Syria through Turkey, Germany, Belgium then Netherlands from where he came to Morocco.

Morocco provided the tip-off that enabled French police to locate Abaaoud, has been holding Abaaoud’s brother Yassine since October and has issued an arrest warrant for Salah Abdeslam, who is suspected of taking part in the attacks and is on the run.

(Reporting by Aziz El Yaakoubi; Editing by Patrick Markey/Jeremy Gaunt)

Belgium says found possible Paris attacks bomb factory in December raid

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Belgian investigators believe explosives used in the attacks in Paris in November may have been made in an apartment in Brussels that was rented under a false name and where a fingerprint of a key fugitive was found.

Police found material that could be used to make explosives, traces of explosive acetone peroxide and handmade belts during a raid on the apartment on Dec. 10, federal prosecutors said in a statement on Friday.

Belgian newspaper De Standaard, which reported the raid in its Friday edition, said the investigators believed the explosives were probably packed into suicide belts in a hotel outside Paris in the lead-up to the Nov. 13 attacks.

Prosecutors investigating Belgian links to the Paris attacks said the apartment in the district of Schaerbeek had been rented under a false name that might have been used by a person already in custody in connection with the Paris attacks.

The find adds to indications that the Nov. 13 shooting and suicide bomb attacks in Paris, in which 130 people were killed, were at least partially planned in Belgium.

Two of the attackers had been living in Brussels and Belgian authorities have arrested 10 people.

Investigators also found a fingerprint of Salah Abdeslam, the brother of one of the attackers, who returned from Paris the morning after the attacks and has still not been found.

Many of those arrested in Belgium have links to Abdeslam, including two who drove from Brussels hours after the attacks to pick him up and another who drove him from one part of Brussels to Schaerbeek after his return.

According to De Standaard, investigators believe the fingerprint indicates Abdeslam used the flat as a safe house after the attacks, given signs that the apartment had been partially cleaned up, although they do not know how long he stayed there.

Belgian media also said this week investigators also now believe that two men controlled the Nov. 13 attacks by sending SMS text messages from Belgium during the evening.

Prosecutors appealed to the public for help on Dec. 4 in the hunt for these two men who traveled with Abdeslam to Hungary in September using fake identity cards with the names Samir Bouzid and Soufiane Kayal. Grainy images of their faces are shown on the federal police’s website.

The two, clearly older than the attackers, are believe to have played a pivotal role, according to Belgian newspaper La Libre Belgique, in assuring logistics for the operation that was months in the planning.

The same false identity of Soufiane Kayal was used to rent a property in the Belgian town of Auvelais that possibly served as a safe house.

The other false identity card, for Samir Bouzid, was used four days after the attacks to transfer 750 euros at a Western Union office in Brussels to Hasna Aitboulahcen, who died in a police assault in St Denis on Nov. 18.

Separately, federal prosecutor Frederic Van Leeuw warned in an interview on broadcaster VTM late on Thursday that the Jan. 15 anniversary of a foiled attack on Belgian soil could prompt someone to launch an attack in the country.

“We know that they opt for symbolic dates although on the other hand no one knows why Charlie Hebdo took place on Jan. 7,” he said.

(Reporting By Philip Blenkinsop; Editing by Toby Chopra)

Belgium Rescues Over 200 Syrian Christians In Secret Operation

The Belgian government has carried out a secret operation to rescue 240 people, over 200 of them Christians, from the Syrian city of Aleppo.

The Christians will be taken to Belgium and offered asylum by the Belgian government.

The secret two-month operation is still being mostly shrouded in secrecy by the Belgian government, likely to keep sources protected from Islamic extremists in the region.

“We did it via civil society organizations which could get them out of there,” said a foreign ministry spokesperson.

“The minority Christians were selected by a citizen ‘action committee’ run by a Belgian diplomat and a psychiatrist with a network of contacts in the country,” AFP news agency wrote. “They left Aleppo in small groups and in seven phases.”

Belgium has taken in about 5,500 refugees from Syria since the beginning of the Syrian civil war in 2011.

“This is the biggest refugee population from a single conflict in a generation,” UN refugee chief Antonio Guterres said in a statement. “It is a population that needs the support of the world but is instead living in dire conditions and sinking deeper into poverty.”

Belgian Doctor Tells Jewish Woman To Go To Gaza For Treatment

Belgian officials who have been trying to downplay a heavy rise in anti-Semitism since the start of the current Gaza conflict are reeling after reports a doctor told a Jewish woman to go to Gaza for treatment of a fractured rib.

A doctor working a medical hotline in Flanders, Belgium told the son of a Jewish woman that he would not come out to treat her for a fractured rib when he called at 11 p.m. Wednesday.  The doctor hung up on the son the first time, then when the son called again the doctor said to “send her to Gaza for a few hours, then she’ll get rid of the pain.”

Health ministry officials say they are looking into the incident.  The doctor told officials he knew the patient had to be Jewish because of her son’s accent.

An alderman of the Antwerp district council who knows the Jewish family called the doctor and recorded the conversation where he admitted refusing to treat the Jewish woman and telling her to go to Gaza.

Also in the last week, a Jewish woman was refused service at a clothing store because she was a Jew.  A restaurant in Liege posted a sign that said dogs were welcome in their restaurant but Zionists and Jews were not allowed inside their building.