Man in White is STILL on the run
Now bungling Belgians have to free only bomb suspect
UNDER-fire Belgian police were yesterday forced to release the sole suspect charged over last week’s terror attacks due to a lack of evidence.
Detectives claimed they had identified the man, named locally as Faycal Cheffou, 31, as the third terrorist at Brussels Airport, who was wearing a hat and dressed in white.
But in the latest setback for the Belgian authorities, a judge ruled there was no evidence to justify holding him any longer.
Officers yesterday reissued CCTV footage of the ‘man in the hat’ strolling through the airport moments before two suicide bombers blew themselves up.
They made a fresh appeal for help in tracking down the third airport attacker, said to be carrying the biggest bomb but fled when it failed to explode.
Freelance journalist Mr Cheffou was arrested on Thursday and faced preliminary charges of ‘involvement in a terrorist group, terrorist murder and attempted terrorist murder’ before he was freed. Belgian authorities have already been criticised for failings over last week’s attacks and November’s Paris atrocity.
The death toll from the Brussels bombings rose to 35 yesterday after four of the victims being treated in hospital died.
It does not include the three suicide bombers. Another 96 remain in hospital.
The only Briton to die in the bombings was IT consultant David Dixon, 50, on his way to work in Brussels on the metro, the Foreign Office said.
In the 32- second airport clip, the wanted man – his identity hidden underneath a black hat and glasses – can be seen walking calmly through the airport.
Wearing a smart white shirt and light jacket, he is pushing a large black suitcase – believed to be his bomb – on a trolley.
Next to him are two men in black, identified as Brussels bombers Ibrahim El-Bakraoui, 29, and Najim Laachraoui, 24.
Just over an hour later, ElBakraoui’s brother Khalid blew himself up at a metro station.
There had been speculation that the third man on the CCTV was Mr Cheffou. He was arrested on Thursday in a car close to his home and was reportedly picked out of a line-up by the taxi driver who drove the terrorists to the airport. Police said they would use DNA to try to establish his role. But they found no explosives or weapons at his home.
Mr Cheffou was described as an activist known for trying to convert asylum seekers and the homeless to radical Islam.
Brussels mayor Yvan Mayeur said he warned police about him, and Mr Cheffou’s sister said she had told officers two years ago about her brother’s desire to travel to Syria.
But friends and former colleagues had described him as a ‘straight up kind of guy who loved radio work’.
The Belgian federal prosecutor’s office said yesterday: ‘The indications that led to the arrest of Faycal C were not substantiated. As a result, the subject has been released.’
There was no sign of Mr Cheffou at his flat, close to the European Commission, last night.
His release is a blow to the Belgian authorities, already criticised after it emerged bomber I br a hi m El - Bakraoui was deported from Turkey last July over fears he was travelling to Syria to join IS – but Belgian authorities took no action.