The main suspect who was charged over last week’s Brussels attacks has been released this afternoon, following a lack of evidence linking him to the brutal bombings.
Without giving further details, the federal prosecutor’s office said in a statement:
The indications that led to the arrest of Faycal C. were not substantiated by the ongoing inquiry. As a result, the subject has been released by the examining magistrate.
Faycal C, was the man identified by prosecutors as the prime suspect in the hunt for the ‘man in the hat’ at the Brussels airport bombings.
He was named by Belgian media reports as freelance journalist Fayçal Cheffou. Police announced that he had none of the links to the Paris attacks that characterised the three named conspirators who died carrying out last Tuesday’s attacks.
Named by Belgian media reports as freelance journalist Fayçal Cheffou, police said the suspect had none of the links to the Paris attacks that the three named conspirators did have.
Cheffou was originally charged on Saturday with ‘taking part in a terrorist group, terrorist murder and attempted terrorist murder’.
Belgian police have now released more of the CCTV images in a bid to identify the suspect on the right, seen wearing light-coloured clothing and a black hat.
Police say he was pushing a trolley carrying a suitcase containing the largest bomb of the three, but it failed to detonate.
The other two devices exploded in Zaventem airport terminal shortly after 8am, killing 11 people and wounding 100 others. 30 minutes later, another suicide bomber detonated at the Maelbeek metro station in the centre of the city killing another 20 people.
A further four people have died in hospital following the attacks.
