Swedish and Belgian PMs lay wreaths for Brussels terror victims
The Swedish and Belgian prime ministers have paid tribute to two Swedish men shot dead by a gunman in Brussels on Monday night, as authorities scrambled to work out how the attacker had slipped through the net.
In Brussels on Wednesday, the Swedish prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, and his Belgian counterpart, Alexander De Croo, took part in a brief ceremony for the victims, laying wreaths and a Swedish football scarf and jersey among bouquets of flowers.
The two men, one of whom has been identified as Patrick Lundström, 60, were in the city for a Euro 2024 qualifier between Belgium and Sweden. Another man, also Swedish, was injured in the attack. The gunman, a 45-yearold Tunisian, was shot dead by police on Tuesday.
On Wednesday Lundström’s siblings paid tribute to their brother, telling the Swedish broadcaster SVT: “The whole family is deeply shocked by the unimaginable that has happened.” They described him as “a fantastic warm, funny and caring father, husband, grandfather and uncle,” adding: His beloved family always came first.”
The terrorist attack has prompted fresh calls for the EU to bolster security at its external borders and within the 27-member bloc, and to clamp down on its returns policies.
The attacker, named in media as Abdesalem Lassoued, originally came from Tunisia, arriving in Europe on the Italian island of Lampedusa in 2011, according to Italian prosecutors. He applied for asylum in Italy but went on to spend time in several European countries, including Sweden, where he went to prison, before ending up in Belgium, where he was also denied asylum but not deported.
It emerged on Tuesday that the perpetrator had not been on the terrorist list in Belgium but had been on the radar of the authorities for illegal residency and four other matters. Italian media reported that the authorities there had passed on intelligence about the killer to four countries: Belgium, Norway, the UK and Sweden.
On Wednesday the Belgian government was criticised for apparent intelligence failures, with the former asylum and migration minister Theo Francken asking why Lassoued had been able to stay in Belgium.
“The man has applied for asylum in our country. Then he is interrogated, and then his social media profiles are looked at. His Facebook page was full of IS [Islamic State] idolatry and jihadism. Has no one seen that?” he said on Belgian radio.
De Croo has demanded to know why information on the attacker “was not digested or was not used” by police and security services. “I want answers to those questions so that I can change policy,” he said.
Threat analysis had been undertaken before the football match in light of a heightened security risk level identified by Swedish authorities this summer, following far-right protests that involved the burning of the Qur’an, Islam’s holy book.
But, De Croo said: “When two people die, the only thing you can say is that things have gone wrong.”
After the ceremony at the scene of the attack in Brussels, Kristersson called for rules surrounding the deportation of people whose applications for asylum were rejected, to be strengthened. “We need as member states additional tools, additional possibilities … It is quite clear that just gently asking [them to leave] is not enough,” he said.
The Swedish prime minister said nobody could have predicted the killings, although De Croo did say it would have been “useful to know” that the attacker had been in prison in Sweden.
“I don’t blame Belgium at all,” said Kristensson. “It’s ironic that this specific person … [had] also been in Sweden from time to time and seemed to [have been] convicted in Sweden as well, and should not have been in Sweden at all.”
The head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, speaking at a joint press conference, promised to respond. “Member states must be given the power to deport individuals who pose a threat to state security,” she said.
However, according to two senior European Commissioners, proposals for new laws that would see the “mandatory” deportation of migrants who have been deemed a national security risk in an EU country are being held up by the European parliament.
The legislation was agreed by member states in June. Margaritis Schinas, the European Commission’s vice president who is responsible for coordinating the passage of the laws, urged MEPs to push them through swiftly.
“We don’t need more evidence that these proposals were right. And we need this to happen yesterday,” he said.
The Swedish European commissioner for home affairs, Ylva Johansson, said member states also had to use the laws they already had to return those, like Lassoued, who had failed the asylum process.
Of the 400,000 returns decisions per year, only 65,000 have been enacted so far this year, she said.