In Belgium, the investigation into the terrorist attack of October 16 which cost the lives of two Swedes, on the sidelines of a Belgium-Sweden football match in Brussels, is progressing. Thursday October 26, a 44-year-old Tunisian, suspected of complicity with the author of the attack, was taken into custody and charged with “assassination in a terrorist context” and “participation in the activities of a terrorist group” .
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With our correspondent in Brussels, Laura Broulard
The imprisoned man is suspected of having a link with the weapon used in the attack, an AR-15 type rifle rather rare in Europe. He had been arrested the day before, Wednesday October 25 in Tervuren, near Brussels. He is now charged with terrorism charges.
It is therefore still time to identify the potential accomplices of Abdesalem Lassoued, the radicalized Tunisian who killed two Swedes on October 16 before being shot dead the next day by the police. At the beginning of the week, two other Tunisians, domiciled in the Paris region, were indicted in this case, as part of investigations launched by the French anti-terrorism justice system.
The investigation must still clarify their links with the attacker, and therefore confirm or refute the lone wolf thesis put forward the day after the attack by the Belgian authorities. According to a source close to investigators, Abdesalem Lassoued, in any case, sent his protest video to 26 people shortly after the attack.
Tunisia had requested the extradition of the killer sentenced in 2005 to 26 years in prison
At the same time, the controversy surrounding the failings of Belgian justice in this case continues. On October 20, the Minister of Justice, Vincent Van Quickenborne, announced his resignationevoking a “ monumental error » from Belgian justice, which had not processed a request for extradition of the killer issued by Tunisia.
We now know that Abdesalem Lassoued was sentenced to 26 years in prison in Tunisia in 2005 and that he managed to escape in 2011, before leaving for Europe. In 2022, Tunisian authorities reported him via Interpol, and sent an extradition request to Belgium. A request which was probably forgotten in a cabinet of the public prosecutor’s office in the Belgian capital.
“ As we have no trace of the exact route of the file, it will unfortunately never be possible to give a complete answer to all questions », concluded, during a press conference Tim de Wolf, the king’s prosecutor, while pointing the finger at the “ seriously understaffed » of this institution.
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