Brussels: Police found fingerprints of Paris attacks fugitive Salah Abdeslam in a Brussels apartment.
Brussels: Police found fingerprints of Paris attacks
fugitive Salah Abdeslam in a Brussels apartment
raided this week, officials said Friday as authorities
continued searching for two suspects who fled the
scene.
Reports suggested Abdeslam could even be one of
the two men who slipped through a massive police
cordon Tuesday in the Forest quarter of Brussels
after another suspect was shot dead.
Abdeslam, 26, is believed to have played a key role
in the 13 November attacks claimed by the Islamic
State group that left 130 people dead.
Investigations have shown that several of those
involved in the assaults lived in Brussels, where it
seems increasingly likely the attacks were planned.
The Franco-Moroccan, whose older brother Brahim blew himself up in Paris, fled across the border to Belgium hours after the massacre and is now one of the most wanted men in Europe.
Belgium's RTBF television station, citing unidentified sources, said it was "more than likely" that Abdeslam was one of the two suspects who fled the Forest apartment but Belgian authorities refused comment on that issue.
"We can confirm that fingerprints of Salah
Abdeslam were found in the apartment in Forest,"
spokesman for federal prosecutors Eric Van Der
Sypt said , without elaborating.
The firefight on Tuesday erupted after Belgian and
French police searched the Forest property as part
of continued investigations into the Paris attacks.
The officers went to the apartment believing it was
rented under the same false identity as a hideout in the southern Belgian city of Charleroi used by the Paris attackers.
A report on Friday said that the man killed during
the anti-terror raid in Brussels is on a list of IS
fighters leaked last week.
TV channel VRT said that the 35-year-old Algerian
identified by the authorities as Mohamed Belkaid
and who was living illegally in Belgium, was listed
as a volunteer to commit a suicide bomb attack.
Belgium's federal prosecutor
declined to comment on the report.
Police found a Kalashnikov assault rifle, extremist
Islamic literature and and IS flag near Belkaid after
he was shot.
Asked whether the one of the suspects who escaped the shootout was Abdeslam, a source close to the investigation said: "We can obviously ask ourselves the question."
Another Abdeslam fingerprint was found in
December in a different Brussels apartment, where investigators believe the fugitive hid for three weeks immediately following the attacks.
Belgium has been at the centre of the investigation
into the Paris attacks almost from day one.
The ringleader, IS member Abdelhamid Abaaoud,
was also from Brussels. He was killed in a raid in
Paris shortly after the attacks.
Both had links to the largely immigrant Brussels
district of Molenbeek which was targeted by
authorities after the attacks.
Brahim Abdeslam, Salah's brother, was buried in a
discreet ceremony on Thursday in Brussels.
Another of the Paris attackers, Bilal Hadfi, was
buried quietly in the same cemetery in the
northwest of the city last week.
fugitive Salah Abdeslam in a Brussels apartment
raided this week, officials said Friday as authorities
continued searching for two suspects who fled the
scene.
Reports suggested Abdeslam could even be one of
the two men who slipped through a massive police
cordon Tuesday in the Forest quarter of Brussels
after another suspect was shot dead.
Abdeslam, 26, is believed to have played a key role
in the 13 November attacks claimed by the Islamic
State group that left 130 people dead.
Investigations have shown that several of those
involved in the assaults lived in Brussels, where it
seems increasingly likely the attacks were planned.
The Franco-Moroccan, whose older brother Brahim blew himself up in Paris, fled across the border to Belgium hours after the massacre and is now one of the most wanted men in Europe.
Belgium's RTBF television station, citing unidentified sources, said it was "more than likely" that Abdeslam was one of the two suspects who fled the Forest apartment but Belgian authorities refused comment on that issue.
"We can confirm that fingerprints of Salah
Abdeslam were found in the apartment in Forest,"
spokesman for federal prosecutors Eric Van Der
Sypt said , without elaborating.
The firefight on Tuesday erupted after Belgian and
French police searched the Forest property as part
of continued investigations into the Paris attacks.
The officers went to the apartment believing it was
rented under the same false identity as a hideout in the southern Belgian city of Charleroi used by the Paris attackers.
A report on Friday said that the man killed during
the anti-terror raid in Brussels is on a list of IS
fighters leaked last week.
TV channel VRT said that the 35-year-old Algerian
identified by the authorities as Mohamed Belkaid
and who was living illegally in Belgium, was listed
as a volunteer to commit a suicide bomb attack.
Belgium's federal prosecutor
declined to comment on the report.
Police found a Kalashnikov assault rifle, extremist
Islamic literature and and IS flag near Belkaid after
he was shot.
Asked whether the one of the suspects who escaped the shootout was Abdeslam, a source close to the investigation said: "We can obviously ask ourselves the question."
Another Abdeslam fingerprint was found in
December in a different Brussels apartment, where investigators believe the fugitive hid for three weeks immediately following the attacks.
Belgium has been at the centre of the investigation
into the Paris attacks almost from day one.
The ringleader, IS member Abdelhamid Abaaoud,
was also from Brussels. He was killed in a raid in
Paris shortly after the attacks.
Both had links to the largely immigrant Brussels
district of Molenbeek which was targeted by
authorities after the attacks.
Brahim Abdeslam, Salah's brother, was buried in a
discreet ceremony on Thursday in Brussels.
Another of the Paris attackers, Bilal Hadfi, was
buried quietly in the same cemetery in the
northwest of the city last week.
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