CAPTURED: THE MAN IN WHITE
Dramatic arrest of bomb brothers’ ‘accomplice’... whose own sister reported him to the police TWO YEARS ago
THE ‘man in white’ seen moments before the Brussels airport bombings has reportedly been captured alive and charged with terrorism offences.
Belgian media named Faycal Cheffou as the suspect pictured alongside Ibrahim El-Bakraoui and Najim Laachraoui shortly before they detonated suicide bombs in the departure hall, killing 14 people.
Along with two other men, he was charged with ‘involvement in a terrorist group, terrorist killings and attempted terrorist killings’ following a series of arrests last week. At the time, police feared another attack was imminent. The revelations came as: A security guard at a nuclear facility in Belgium was murdered in his home, prompting fears that terrorists are plotting to make a radioactive ‘dirty’ bomb;
The three men charged yesterday over the Brussels attacks were linked to the network of IS jihadis behind November’s Paris attacks;
Cheffou’s sister said she warned police two years ago about her brother’s desire to travel to Syria;
Two unnamed British businessmen caught in the blasts remain in hospital with ‘life-changing’ injuries;
A ‘solidarity’ march planned for today was cancelled because Belgian police are too ‘stretched’ dealing with the terror investigation, while singer Mariah Carey has cancelled a Brussels gig;
Brussels Airport will remain closed until Tuesday at the earliest.
Prosecutors have not officially con- firmed that freelance journalist Cheffou is indeed the man wearing a hat and light-coloured jacket in the footage, and seen running away after his device, hidden in baggage, failed to go off at the airport terminal on Tuesday. But a source close to the investigation said ‘that is a hypothesis investigators are working on’.
The Mail on Sunday can reveal that the taxi driver who drove the three bombers to the airport told police that Cheffou – arrested on Thursday night – ‘looks a lot like one of them’. The driver also revealed that the men were ‘ranting’ about Britain and the United States during the journey to the airport.
It was claimed yesterday that Cheffou’s sister reported him to police in 2014, saying she was worried he was planning to go to Syria but was ‘waiting [for] the right moment’.
And Cheffou was also accused of attempting to recruit migrants in Brussels to radical groups. The Brussels mayor, Yvan Mayeur, had told police several times that he was dangerous and should be detained. Prosecutors apparently refused.
It is understood Cheffou lived in an apartment building just 500 yards from Maelbeek metro station, where suicide bomber Khalid El-Bakraoui – brother of Ibrahim – killed 20 people last week. Police spent five hours searching his studio flat. A resident told a Belgian newspaper that she heard investigators say they had not found weapons or explosives but had ‘found enough’.
Last night, police said that Cheffou had been arrested on Thursday night in Brussels as he was standing outside one of the federal prosecutor’s offices in the city. A search was then carried out at his home but no weapons or explosives were found.
Two other suspects, identified as Aboubakar A. and Rabah N., were charged with ‘terrorist activities and membership of a terrorist group’. Rabah N. was wanted in connection with a raid in France on Thursday that the government said foiled a terrorist attack.
In a separate development yesterday, it emerged a security officer at a Belgian nuclear facility was shot dead two days after the Brussels bombings. It prompted new fears that terrorists are plotting to make a radioactive dirty bomb, although officials later stressed the murder was not terror-related.
Didier Prospero, 45 was found at his remote farmhouse by his three children when they returned from school on Thursday.
Despite prosecutors’ insistence that there was no terrorism motive, it is known that atomic facilities in Belgium are being targeted by an Islamic State network operating across Europe.
Before they blew themselves up, Khalid and Ibrahim El-Bakraoui had been spying on a senior nuclear power official, prompting fears that they were planning a cataclysmic atrocity. One Belgian installation is only 90 miles from Kent.
Police spent five hours searching his home