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Belgian Police Conduct Raids in Connection to Brussels Attack Man in Hat in Brussels Airport Attack Is in Custody, Belgium Says
(about 2 hours later)
PARIS — The Belgian police, who on Friday detained five people in connection with the March 22 attack on Brussels Airport and a subway station, conducted another raid on Saturday. PARIS — The man in the hat who accompanied the two suicide bombers who detonated their bags at Brussels Airport on March 22, and who was seen in a surveillance image walking away from the airport after the explosions, has been identified as Mohamed Abrini, the Belgian prosecutor’s office said Saturday in a statement.
Bolstered by special operations units and forensic experts, the police entered a house in Etterbeek, one of the 19 districts of Brussels, the Belgian capital. The residents were evacuated, according to the Belgian news media. Mr. Abrini was detained on Friday in Brussels and was charged with participation in the activities of a terrorist group and terrorist murder earlier on Saturday. Later in the day, he confessed that he had been also directly involved in the explosions at Brussels Airport, the prosecutor’s office said.
The purpose of the raid was unclear, and neither the police nor the Belgian prosecutor’s office responded to questions about it. “After being confronted with the results of the different expert examinations, he confessed his presence at the crime scene,” the office announced in its statement. “He explained having thrown away his vest in a garbage bin and having sold his hat afterwards.”
It appeared that no one was detained, according to witnesses, but because people were pushed back by the police and the streets were blocked off, the results of the raid were not entirely clear. The arrest of Mr. Abrini and his confession is a major breakthrough in the case, and, if followed by further information, it could help investigators identify the rest of the Islamic State network in Belgium and France.
There were also unsubstantiated reports that a sixth person had been detained overnight in connection with the Brussels attacks. Mr. Abrini is also suspected of providing logistical support for the Nov. 13 attacks in and around Paris that killed 130 people, the prosecutors said. Until Friday, Mr. Abrini was the only known suspect in the Paris attacks who had not been killed or captured.
One of those detained on Friday was Mohamed Abrini, the only known suspect in the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris who had not yet been killed or captured. Mr. Abrini, 31, according to the prosecutor’s office, now says he was at the attack at Brussels Airport, which killed 15 people and the two suicide bombers. He remained in Belgium at least for part of the time between the two attacks, officials say, and is likely to have at least some information, and perhaps a great deal, about the planning and individuals involved.
A spokesman for the Belgian prosecutor’s office, Eric Van der Sijpt, said Friday that Mr. Abrini’s fingerprints and DNA had been found in the car used by some of the Paris attackers in two trips between Brussels and Paris to prepare for the attack. Mr. Abrini was also seen in video surveillance footage at a gas station as he traveled with two of the attackers.
His fingerprints and DNA were also found in an apartment on Rue Henri Bergé in the Schaerbeek section of Brussels, where, investigators say they believe, explosive vests used in the Paris attacks were made, and in a Schaerbeek apartment on Rue Max Roos. The three Brussels Airport attackers left from the apartment on Rue Max Roos by taxi on the morning of the attacks, and investigators later found large quantities of explosives and bomb-making equipment there.