2023-10-23 23:14:55
The investigation into the perpetrator of the Brussels attack on Monday October 16 is experiencing new developments in France. Abdesalem Lassaoued, the man suspected of having killed two Swedes and seriously injured a third person, appears to have maintained contact before and after his act with at least four of his acquaintances.
According to information from Le Parisien, one of them is a Tunisian in his forties living in Val-de-Marne. Arrested Thursday in the same department and placed in police custody as part of the investigation opened by the national anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office (PNAT), he was indicted this Monday, October 23 for “terrorist criminal association” and “complicity in “assassination in connection with a terrorist enterprise”. The PNAT requested his placement in pre-trial detention.
VIDEO. Terrorist attack in Brussels leaves two Swedish victims
This man, from the same town in Tunisia as the attacker, would be one of his “long-time” friends. » Seeing the face and name of Abdesalem Lassaoued appear on the screens Monday evening after the publication of his protest video, he contacted him by telephone to check if it was really him. This contact would have taken place around 8 p.m. Monday evening, less than an hour after the facts were committed, and would have lasted only one or two minutes.
The man arrested spoke with the attacker the weekend before the attack
The suspect then confirmed with his friend what had just happened. After a night of tracking, Abdesalem Lassaoued was fatally injured when he was arrested in the Schaerbeek district, a town in the north of Brussels. However, his interlocutor, “in a state of shock” according to his defense, would not have considered it useful to report himself to the authorities over the following days.
Even more embarrassing perhaps, this telephone contact Monday evening would have been preceded by a first exchange of voice messages during the weekend. On this occasion, the two men would have discussed the football match between the Belgian and Swedish selections which was to take place in Brussels on Monday evening. Was it, in appearance, a simple conversation between football fans?
Abdesalem Lassaoued then seemed to inquire about the location of the hotel occupied by the Swedish players, the night before the match. His friend would then have only advised him to consult certain specialized sites likely to provide him with this information.
“He never imagined seeing him implicated”
“My client refutes any involvement in the facts with which he is accused,” maintains Me Souleymen Rakrouki, the lawyer for the man arrested in Val-de-Marne. He is still in shock after learning that the perpetrator of the Brussels attack was someone close to him. He never imagined seeing him implicated in facts of such seriousness. »
Still as part of the investigation opened by the French authorities following the Brussels attack, three other Tunisian people were arrested Thursday, October 19, in Nantes (Loire-Atlantique), in Maine-et-Loire and in the Paris region. The person arrested in Nantes would have received a protest video shot by the attacker before his act. “Investigations are continuing to clarify the links with the author of the attack,” adds the national anti-terrorism prosecution.
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