Two Tunisians residing in the Paris region and “probably linked to the perpetrator of the attack” on October 16 in Brussels have been indicted by a Paris investigative judge, AFP learned on Tuesday from the French counter-terrorism prosecutor’s office ( Pnat ) and sources near the case.
On Monday they were presented to an investigating judge and charged with criminal terrorist organization and complicity in an attack in connection with a terrorist enterprise. They were subsequently remanded in custody, the Pnat added.
Both are Tunisians and are in their 40s and 50s, sources familiar with the case added.
The man in his 40s, who has “lived in France for almost twenty years”, “formally denies” the allegations, his lawyer assured the AFP news agency.
“He has nothing to do with the attack,” Souleymen Rakrouki said. The attacker “was a friend who he had known for a long time and who he had not seen any signs of radicalization. He could never have imagined such an act,” he insisted.
The fifty-year-old’s advisers, Pierre-Henri Baert and Louise Hennon, declined to comment when asked.
According to Pnat, “the investigation continues to clarify their links” to Abdesalem Lassoued, a radicalized 45-year-old Tunisian who killed two Swedes when they came to Belgium to support their national football team.
The attacker, who had been subject to an extradition request from Tunisia for more than a year, was shot dead by Belgian police on October 17.
An investigation was opened in Paris on October 17 after information “was transmitted by the Belgian judicial authorities,” the Pnat said.
Four people “probably linked to the perpetrator of the attack” were arrested on Thursday in Loire-Atlantique, Maine-et-Loire and the Paris region, Pnat added. The four people were released from police custody.