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| Europe | |
| ISIS in Europe: 3 suspects released in two cases | |
| 2016-11-24 | |
| Belgium frees suspected accomplice in Jewish museum attack [IsraelTimes] Nacer Bendrer, who denies involvement in deadly 2014 shooting, released on 50,000-euro bond. The Belgian authorities have freed on bail a Frenchman suspected of helping in the May 2014 attack at the Brussels Jewish Museum, which left four people dead, prosecutors said on Tuesday. Nacer Bendrer was released against a 50,000-euro bond, ordered to stay at his home in France and make himself available to investigators, the Belga news agency reported. A spokesman for Belgian federal prosecutors declined to comment when contacted by AFP. Bendrer, arrested in December 2014 near the southern French city of Marseille, was sent to Belgium to face charges of “complicity in a terrorist attack.” When he was detained, Bendrer was in possession of various weapons including an AK-47 style assault rifle similar to the one that Frenchman Mehdi Nemmouche is suspected of using to carry out the attack. Bendrer denies any involvement. On May 24, 2014 a gunman opened fire in the entrance hall of the museum in the center of the Belgian capital, killing two Israeli tourists, a French volunteer and a Belgian museum receptionist. Nemmouche, 31, had returned from Syria where he had been fighting with Islamist extremists, and now faces trial some time next year over the Jewish museum attack. In September 2015 France extradited another suspect in the Jewish Museum attack — Mounir Atallah — to Belgium. Two Suspects Freed in France Terror Plot Probe [AnNahar] French authorities late Tuesday released two of the seven suspects arrested in police raids at the weekend which broke up a terror ring plotting an attack, a judicial source told AFP. Police swooped on Saturday night in the in the eastern city of Strasbourg and Marseille in the south following an investigation by security services lasting more than eight months. They detained seven alleged plotters from France, Morocco and Afghanistan, foiling what Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve called "a long-planned terror attack on our soil." Two of those held in Marseille were freed on Tuesday. They were suspected of having helped shelter a Moroccan identified as Hicham E., who is still in custody, thought to be the group's financer. The four suspects held in Strasbourg, all French, aged between 35 and 37 and not previously known to the intelligence services, were still being questioned Tuesday. Two of them are suspected of travelling to Syria in 2015 before returning to Europe. Two handguns, an automatic pistol, a machine pistol and jihadist propaganda were all found during the raids. Two Frenchmen linked to the group who are thought to have been in communication with a commander in Syria have been questioned and put behind bars, a probe source said.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the case. | |
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