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Third Brussels airport bomber remains on run: prosecutor

Xinhua, March 23, 2016 Adjust font size:

The third suspect in the Brussels airport bombing is still on the run, Belgium's federal prosecutor Frederic Van Leeuw said on Wednesday, adding that he had not been formally identified.

Van Leeuw confirmed at a press conference that the suspect in the middle of the videosurveillance picture issued by investigators on Tuesday had been identified through DNA as Brussels-born Brahim El Bakraoui.

The prosecutor also confirmed that Brahim's brother, Khalid, had been identified as the suicide bomber responsible for the explosion at Maelbeek subway station.

Van Leeuw said the suspect on the left of the video screen grab, who is believed to have blown himself up, had not been identified.

The suspect on the right, wearing a white jacket and black hat, ran away from the scene of the attack. He had been carrying the biggest bomb of the three which did not explode, the prosecutor added.

According to the federal prosecutor, a taxi driver informed police after he drove three suspicious-looking men to Brussels airport from an address on Rue Max Roos in Schaerbeek.

This property was raided on Tuesday night, where investigators found 15 kilos of explosives, 150 litres of acetone, detonators and a suitcase filled with nails and screws, Van Leeuw added.

A computer was found in a bin nearby, in which Ibrahim Bakraoui had written a note saying he did not know what to do and had to act fast or end up in prison.

The latest official figure from the federal prosecutor is 31 confirmed dead in yesterday's attacks and 261 wounded.

Earlier on Wednesday, La Derniere Heure newspaper claimed that a suspect arrested in the Brussels district of Anderlecht was Najim Laachraoui, thought to be one of Salah Abdeslam's accomplices. However the newspaper has since removed the report and said it had been mistaken. Endit