Brussels cops raid home, 5 held
Brussels, Dec. 21: The Belgian police searched a home in the centre of Brussels and made two arrests in connection with a probe into November’s terror attacks in Paris, federal prosecutors said.
The police arrested a total of five people including two brothers, prosecutors said on Monday. The cops arrested the two brothers and a third person in a house raid in central Brussels on Sunday, while two others were detained in a separate search in a suburb on Monday, the federal prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
Special forces and federal police were involved in a raid on Sunday which lasted around five hours and took place close to the city’s popular tourist area, authorities said.
“They have been taken in for questioning,” Eric Van Der Sypt, spokesman for the federal prosecutor, said of the men, but gave no further details about them.
However, he confirmed the detained suspects did not include not fugitive Salah Abdeslam, who is one of Europe’s most wanted men over his alleged involvement in the November 13 attacks.
The Sunday search took place in a building on the outer limits of Molenbeek — an area with a large immigrant population — and less than a kilometre away from Brussels’ central Grand Place square, one of the city’s most popular tourist sites. Pedestrians were evacuated as the raid took place, from 6pm to 11pm local time.
The Belgian police are still actively looking for 26- year- old, Brussels- born Abdeslam, suspected of having played a key role in the Paris attacks and understood to have returned to the Belgian capital the day after the bloodshed.
An international arrest warrant is out on Abdeslam, who lived in Molenbeek. — AFP