{"id":71340,"date":"2016-03-27T12:04:50","date_gmt":"2016-03-27T16:04:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/breaking911.com\/?p=71340"},"modified":"2016-03-27T12:04:50","modified_gmt":"2016-03-27T16:04:50","slug":"belgian-authorities-charge-a-man-in-connection-with-tuesdays-terrorist-attacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/breaking911.com\/belgian-authorities-charge-a-man-in-connection-with-tuesdays-terrorist-attacks\/","title":{"rendered":"Belgian Authorities Charge A Man In Connection With Tuesday’s Terrorist Attacks"},"content":{"rendered":"
BRUSSELS – After a series of embarrassing failures, Belgian authorities announced apparent progress Saturday in their efforts to unravel a web of interconnected terrorist plots and said they may have found the most-wanted remaining suspect in Tuesday’s devastating suicide bomb attacks.<\/p>\n
The arrest, if confirmed, could help ease some of the jitters in a city that remained palpably on edge Saturday as organizers were forced to call off a planned solidarity rally because authorities acknowledged they could not secure the site.<\/p>\n
Since the bombings, which killed at least 31 people and ripped apart an airport and a subway car, police have been hunting nationwide for “the man in white” – a figure dressed in a white jacket and black hat who appeared on surveillance footage alongside two others who would blow themselves up minutes later.<\/p>\n
Authorities said Saturday that they are investigating the possibility that the man, who is thought to have deposited a piece of explosives-laden luggage in the departures hall and then fled, may already be in custody.<\/p>\n
The arrested man, identified by a European official as Fay\u00e7al Cheffou, appeared before a judge after he was detained Thursday night while sitting in a car in front of the Belgian prosecutor’s office. He was charged with “participation in the activities of a terrorist group, terrorist murders and attempted terrorist murders.”<\/p>\n
A spokesman for the federal prosecutor’s office, Eric Van der Sypt, confirmed that the man identified by his office only as “Fay\u00e7al C.” was being investigated as the possible third airport attacker. But he said the link “cannot be confirmed yet.”<\/p>\n
“We have to be 100 percent sure,” he said. “These are very heavy charges.”<\/p>\n
Belgium’s Le Soir newspaper reported that Cheffou was the man in the video, citing an unidentified source who said that a taxi driver who took the attackers to the airport the morning of the bombings positively identified him.<\/p>\n
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<\/a><\/p>\n Belgian media reported that Cheffou has in the past identified himself as “an independent journalist” and has a history of advocacy on behalf of radical Islamist causes. He was reportedly once arrested for trying to recruit refugees in a public park and later received an order to stay away.<\/p>\n The website of Flanders News posted a video that it said featured Cheffou reporting in front of an asylum center, where he tells viewers that mealtimes for detainees were not altered to account for Ramadan, when Muslims must fast during daylight hours. “This goes against human rights,” he says in the video.<\/p>\n Unlike the other two airport bombers, the third man’s bag never detonated. The first two wore black gloves on their left hands that authorities believe concealed the detonators. The third man did not wear gloves.<\/p>\n The prosecutor’s announcement comes just a day after investigators revealed that they may have missed a crucial opportunity to disrupt plans for the Tuesday killings. In the days before the attacks, investigators were questioning Salah Abdeslam, the last living direct participant in November’s Paris terrorist attacks. He had been arrested in Brussels only four days before the Belgium attackers struck.<\/p>\n But the investigators focused their inquiries on the Paris attacks and on the procedures for extradition rather than press Abdeslam on plans for future strikes.<\/p>\n French newspaper Le Monde published in Saturday’s edition what it claimed were excerpts from a transcript of prosecutors’ questioning of Abdeslam. At one point, they show him photos of the two brothers who days later would attack the Brussels airport and subway, Ibrahim and Khalid el-Bakraoui.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n