Associate of Paris Attacks Suspect Charged Over Brussels Bombings
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Version 0 of 1. BRUSSELS — A man arrested alongside the Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam has been formally charged in Belgium with participation in terrorist activities, in a case that sheds light on the scale and ambition of the Islamic State network that killed more than 150 people in the French and Belgian capitals in recent years. The man, Sofien Ayari, a 24-year-old Tunisian, made his way to Brussels after crossing the Mediterranean in the summer of 2015, according to prosecutors, at the height of Europe’s refugee crisis. Prosecutors say he became part of a Brussels-based network with at least nine safe houses, including two bomb-making shops, and which was planning many further attacks. He was captured on March 18, 2016, hiding with Mr. Abdeslam, believed by investigators to be the only surviving on-the-ground perpetrator of the attacks that killed 130 people in and around Paris in Nov. 2015. Both men were sentenced last month to 20 years in prison for shooting at the police while Mr. Abdeslam was on the run. On Thursday, Belgian prosecutors formally charged Mr. Ayari with “participation in the activities of a terrorist organization” in relation to the attacks four days after his arrest on the Brussels airport and subway, which left more than 30 people dead. “Investigations are evolutionary,” said Eric Van der Sijpt, a spokesman for the Federal Prosecutor’s Office. “It took us two years to put all the different bits and pieces together and decide that we had enough evidence to charge him in relation to the Brussels attacks.” It was after the two men were arrested, investigators say, that the group was panicked into mounting those attacks. “The situation is such that we can’t, that we can’t wait any longer,” says an audio message that investigators say was made three days after the arrests by Najim Laachraoui, who was to be one of three suicide bombers in the Brussels attacks. “We need to act as quickly as possible and we have decided to act tomorrow, Tuesday March 22, in the morning, because we don’t have any safe houses anymore — there is nobody left.” According to police records, however, the explosives he used were made for a far larger series of attacks, with potential targets including museums, military barracks, government offices, nuclear sites, Schiphol airport in Amsterdam, a French Catholic youth group, a royalist group, and a punk group. The overall investigation involves about 40 suspects, official police records show, of whom 14 are dead and 16 under arrest in France or Belgium, with several others held abroad and at least two still being sought. During the trial last month, Mr. Ayari, unlike Mr. Abdeslam, spoke elaborately, minimizing his role in the network and claiming not to know names put to him, while refusing to answer some questions. He is expected to go on trial in Brussels again next year, in front of a jury, alongside another 10 people suspected of involvement in the Brussels attacks. Salah Abdeslam is expected to be charged over that case as well. A separate trial regarding the Paris attacks will take place in the French capital, with some of the same suspects. |