The profile and background of the perpetrator of the attack in Brussels are becoming increasingly precise. According to the Belgian government, the radicalized and illegally resident Tunisian who killed two Swedes in the capital on Monday evening had applied for asylum in four European countries since 2011.
Before applying for asylum in Belgium at the end of 2019, explaining to immigration authorities that he had arrived in this country four years earlier, in December 2015, and then married a Belgian, this man, known to authorities as Abdesalem Lassoued, had applied for asylum ” in Norway on June 23, 2011, in Sweden on September 28, 2012 and in Italy on April 24, 2014,” according to documents from the Belgian Parliament available on Thursday.
Rejected every time
The day after her hearing before a special parliamentary committee, Belgian State Secretary for Asylum and Migration Nicole de Moor spoke again on Thursday about the different stages of Abdesalem Lassoued’s journey and called for better cooperation between European states.
“The terrorist had applied for asylum in four different European countries and was rejected each time because he was not entitled to protection,” explained Nicole de Moor at a meeting with her EU colleagues in Luxembourg. “We need a stronger European approach to achieve a stronger return policy,” she added, deploring the lack of cooperation from certain countries of origin.
Subject to an obligation to leave the country
In Belgium, the Tunisian’s application for protection was “rejected for technical reasons” in autumn 2020, Nicole de Moor told Belgian MPs. The person concerned did not approach the immigration authorities in Brussels to defend his case. An OQT was issued against him on March 4, 2021, but was never executed.
According to Nicole de Moor, both the rejection of the asylum application and the OQT communicated by registered letter were never received by Abdesalem Lassoued at the address in the Brussels municipality of Schaerbeek indicated in his file.