Brussels bomber identified as Islamic State jailer
Najim Laachraoui worked as cleaner in European Parliament, and at the Belgium airport he’s suspected of helping blow up
Najim Laachraoui, one of the Brussels airport suicide bombers, has been identified by several Frenchmen held hostage by Islamic State in Syria as one of their prison guards, sources close to the investigation said.
According to one of the sources, four French journalists kidnapped in Syria in 2013 and 2014 had identified a guard known as “Abou Idriss.”
One of these journalists, Nicolas Henin, “formally identified” Abou Idriss as Najim Laachraoui, said his lawyer Marie-Laure Ingouf, confirming reports in French newspapers.
Laachraoui also briefly worked as a cleaner at the European Parliament several years ago.
He was one of two suicide bombers at Brussels airport on March 22 in coordinated attacks that also struck a metro station in the city, killing 32 people overall.
For five years until 2012, Laachraoui “worked… at Brussels airport”, Flemish-language VTM reported, adding that he had been recruited by a temp agency.
It did not provide details about the kind of work Laachraoui was to have carried out there, but said that airport staff are usually subject to a security check before being given access badges.
There has been no official confirmation of the report.
Traces of Laachraoui’s DNA have been found at a Brussels apartment where the suicide belts for the Brussels attacks were made.
The 24-year-old one-time electrical engineering student is also suspected of being the bomb-maker for last November’s Paris attacks that left 130 people dead.
Both attacks have been claimed by the Islamic State group.
On April 6, the European Parliament said one of the bombers had held a summer cleaning job at its Brussels headquarters in 2009 and 2010. Speaking to AFP, a source close to the inquiry named that person as Laachraoui.
Belgian prosecutors believe Laachraoui went to Syria in February 2013 where he joined IS. He resurfaced last September, two months before the Paris carnage, when he was stopped by police on the Austria-Hungary border.
He was using the false identity of Soufiane Kayal and was travelling with Salah Abdeslam, the sole surviving Paris attacks suspect.
