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Belgium asks Greece to extradite terror suspect

January 18, 2015

Belgian prosecutors say they have asked for the extradition of one of two terror suspects arrested in Greece on Saturday. But the search for the suspected mastermind of a foiled terrorist plot in Belgium continues.

https://p.dw.com/p/1EMPp
Belgian police inspect an apartment in central Verviers, a town between Liege and the German border, in east Belgium January 15, 2015. Belgian police killed two men who opened fire on them during one of about a dozen raids on Thursday against an Islamist group that federal prosecutors said was about to launch "terrorist attacks on a grand scale". A third man was detained in the eastern city of Verviers, where police commandos ran into a hail of gunfire after trying to gain entry to an apartment above a town center bakery. REUTERS/Stringer (
Image: Reuters

Belgian prosecutors said late on Sunday that a terrorist suspect arrested in Greece on Saturday could be linked to a foiled Islamist plot to kill Belgian police, and that they had asked for the person to be extradited.

"After profound analysis of the available elements of the inquiry, it became apparent during the course of the afternoon that there are sufficient elements allowing a request to extradite one of the two people arrested in Athens yesterday," a spokesman for the federal prosecutors' office said.

Initially, prosecutors had said there was no connection between the arrest of several people in Greece and events in Belgium, where police on Thursday killed two suspected Islamist gunmen during raids in the eastern Belgian town of Verviers.

Mastermind 'still at large'

Belgian Justice Minister Koen Geens said on Sunday, however, that the suspected mastermind behind the terrorist plot that was foiled by Thursday's raids was still at large.

Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a 27-year-old Brussels-based man of Moroccan origin, has been identified by Belgian media as the coordinator of the terrorist cell that was to carry out the plot to kill Belgian police on the streets and at police stations across the country. Abaaoud, who has reportedly spent time fighting alongside the Islamic State jihadist group in Syria, is said to have organized the scheme from Greece.

"Yesterday's arrests (in Athens) did not allow him to be intercepted," Geens told broadcaster VRT. "But he is being investigated and I suppose he will be found," he added.

Greek news agency ANA-MPA reported that the two men arrested in Athens were Algerian nationals. Initial media reports had spoken of four arrests.

Fear of attacks

In Belgium, 13 people were arrested in connection with the investigation into the plot, five of whom have been charged with "participating in the activities of a terrorist group."

Belgian authorities estimate that 335 people from Belgium have gone to fight on the side of extremists in Syria and Iraq in the last few years. Of those, 101 have returned home, they say, fueling fears that the returnees could carry out terrorist attacks there.

Thursday's anti-terrorist operation, which was conducted in six communities, came a week after Islamist attacks in France that killed 17 people, but authorities in Belgium say there is no indication that the two incidents are linked.

tj/ksb (Reuters, dpa, AFP)