Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Belgians charge three, ID 27 blast victims
BRUSSELS — Belgian prosecutors announced Saturday that they have charged three men with terror offenses over the suicide attacks at the Brussels airport and subway system, and organizers of a solidarity rally canceled the event at the government’s request because police were
spread too thinly to monitor it.
Belgium’s federal crisis center said that as of late Saturday 27 of the 31 people killed in the attacks Tuesday had been identified.
A doctor who had served in Afghanistan said he and his colleagues have been shocked by the severity of the burns suffered by some of the wounded. The crisis center on Saturday increased the number of wounded to 340.
Federal prosecutors said a man identified as Faycal C., who was arrested Thursday, has been charged with “involvement in a terrorist group, terrorist murder and attempted terrorist murder.”
Belgian media outlets say he is Faycal Cheffou, the man in the cream-colored vest and hat pictured on security video with the two men who blew themselves up at the airport. Cheffou is described as an activist and independent journalist known to police for trying to recruit asylum seekers and homeless people to radical Islam.
Prosecutors would not confirm the Belgian media reports. A police raid was conducted at his home, but no firearms or explosives were found, they said.
Two other suspects detained Thursday and identified as Raba N. and Aboubakar A. were charged with “involvement in the activities of a terrorist group.” In addition, a man identified as
Abderamane A., who was taken into custody Friday after he was shot by police at a Brussels tram stop, was being detained for at least 24 more hours.
Raba N. is accused of being connected to Reda Kriket, a suspect detained Thursday near Paris by French authorities. The French interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, said Thursday that Kriket was in the advanced stages of planning an attack in France.
Also, the investigating judge in charge of these cases released a second person Saturday, Tawfik A., after he was detained Friday for questioning.
AMONG THE VICTIMS
Tuesday’s suicide bombings occurred during the peak morning travel time at the Brussels airport and Maelbeek subway station. The death toll is likely to rise because some body parts have still not been identified, officials said.
Among the dead confirmed Saturday were Americans Justin Shults, 30, and Stephanie Shults, a married couple.
The two had not been seen since Tuesday. Stephanie Shults’ employer, Mars Inc., said in a Facebook post Saturday evening that her family had confirmed that she and her husband died in the bombings at the Brussels airport. Justin Shults’ employer, Clarcor, had confirmed earlier Saturday that he died in the attack.
Justin Shults, originally from Gatlinburg, Tenn., and Stephanie Shults, a native of Lexington, Ky., graduated together from Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management. They were dropping off Stephanie Shults’ mother at the airport and were watching her walk through a security checkpoint when the bombs went off, a family member said.
Justin Shults’ brother, Levi Sutton, wrote on social media Saturday that his brother “traveled the world, leaving each destination better than when he arrived.”
Gigi Adam said her 79-yearold father, Andre Adam, died trying to protect his wife during the attack at the Brussels airport.
Andre Adam was a retired Belgian diplomat who had served as his country’s ambassador to Cuba, the United States, the United Nations and other countries.
“His death has wounded us all forever,” Gigi Adam wrote on Facebook. “All his life he had worked towards the peaceful resolution of conflict in the world.”
She said on Facebook that her mother had been hospitalized after the attack.
Of the 340 wounded, 93 are being treated at a Brussels military hospital. A doctor there said Saturday that 15 people are in a serious-burns unit, five in intensive care.
Dr. Serge Jennes said he had treated similar injuries during his service in Kandahar, in southern Afghanistan, but that he and his colleagues were shocked to see such injuries on women and children.
“I’ve never seen this before in my 20 years at the center for burns,” Jennes said. “Injuries linked to the blowback from the blast, which can mutilate.”
He said almost all of the wounded have burst eardrums and that his colleagues are likely to need psychological counseling to help cope with what they had witnessed.
A U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the status of Americans overseas, said about a dozen U.S. citizens were wounded in the attacks.
In a sign of the tension in the Belgian capital and the way security services are stretched across the country, Belgium’s interior minister appealed to residents not to march today in Brussels in solidarity with the victims.
“We understand fully the emotions,” Interior Minister Jan Jambon told reporters. “We understand that everyone wants to express these feelings.”
But, he said, “we invite the citizens not to have this demonstration.”
Organizers quickly granted his request, postponing the march. But on a Facebook page set up by the organizers of the march, some users said they understood the need to cancel the event, while others disagreed.
“By canceling we are showing them that we are afraid and they will have won,” said a user named Aurore Vandenborre. “I will be at the Bourse tomorrow,” she added, referring to the pedestrian square in front of Brussels’ 19th-century stock exchange building, where people have gathered around makeshift memorials since the attacks.
ASSESSING THE DAMAGE
Brussels airport officials, meanwhile, began to assess the damage caused by the twin explosions at the airport departure terminal.
Authorities have wrapped up their investigation of the crime scene at the airport, and engineers were let in to check the building’s structural integrity and information technology systems — and to see whether the damage can be repaired quickly.
Officials at the Brussels airport, which handles 23.5 million passengers annually, said it would be Tuesday at the earliest before flights resume there. About 600 flights a day are being canceled or diverted.
The Maelbeek subway station remains closed to commuters, but trains are able to pass the station without stopping.
The transportation disruptions have done little to ease the worries of jittery Europeans, who are wondering how many violent extremists remain at large, and where and when they might strike again.
Authorities have said they believe the Brussels attacks and the Nov. 13 bombings in Paris that killed 130 people were plotted from Belgium.
Heavily armed police swept Friday into several Brussels neighborhoods in operations linked to the attacks. Signs of a large police operation remained visible Saturday at the tram station in the city’s Schaerbeek district where a man was shot in the leg by police Friday.
The man, who was sitting with a girl and holding a bag, was ordered by police “to put the bag far from him.” After he did so, police shot him twice.
Residents have mixed feelings about the police intervention.
“The security services are doing their work,” said Timotheee Bunkyezi, a 54-year-old student, who said he believes that for such a large-scale operation, the intelligence the Belgian police had must have been solid.
But Marie-Madeleine Yamotia, a 40-year-old nurse, who lives opposite the bus stop, expressed concern for the girl who had been with the shot man.
“It’s traumatizing for the little one,” she said. “We don’t know. Is he really a suspect? Here, we doubt it a little.”