BRUSSELS: Belgium today charged two people with involvement in terrorism after they were arrested over the Paris attacks, as a major police operation in Brussels failed to nab a key suspect.
The charges came as French President Francois Hollande said that Friday’s attacks in which 129 people were killed were planned in Syria but launched from Belgium, with French help.
In Belgium, the pair were charged “with a terrorist act and participation in the activities of a terrorist group”, while five others held at the weekend were freed without charge, the federal prosecutor’s office said.
One of those released was Mohamed Abdeslam — whose brother Brahim was one of the suicide attackers in Paris, and whose other brother Salah is being hunted by police.
The prosecutors confirmed that a major police raid in Brussels today aimed at arresting Salah Abdeslam had ended without anyone being detained.
Dozens of officers in balaclavas and carrying submachineguns surrounded a house in the Molenbeek district in western Brussels, a the run-down immigrant area which is increasingly under scrutiny as a hotbed of European militancy. (AGENCIES)
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