BRUSSELS: Belgian prosecutors announced early Monday that police had detained 16 people in 22 raids but that Paris fugitive Salah Abdeslam was not among them. Despite the raids, authorities maintained their highest terror alert in the capital for a third straight day.
Belgian special police forces take part in an operation in the neighborhood of Molenbeek.
Federal prosecutor Eric Van Der Sypt said 19 raids were carried out in Molenbeek and other boroughs of Brussels and three raids were carried out in other cities. “We have to stress that no firearms or explosives were discovered ... during the raids,” Van Der Sypt said.” Certain elements in the investigation made Sunday’s intervention necessary. The investigation will in any case be relentlessly continued.” One of those detained was injured when a car he was in tried to ram police during an attempted getaway, Van Der Sypt said.
Man held in Paris raid lent apartment to two ‘from Belgium’
SAINT-DENIS, France: A man arrested on Wednesday during a police assault on the northern Paris suburb of Saint-Denis told AFP he had loaned his apartment to two people from Belgium as a favour to a friend.
“A friend asked me to put up two of his friends for a few days,” Jawad Bendaoud told AFP.
The apartment was targeted by police hunting the mastermind of the Paris attacks last Friday that killed 129 people and left more than 350 injured.
“I said that there was no mattress, they told me ‘it’s not a problem’, they just wanted water and to pray,” Bendaoud said before being handcuffed and led away by police.
He said his friend told him the men came from Belgium, where according to investigators several of the jihadists were known to have lived.
“I was asked to do a favour, I did a favour. I didn’t know they were terrorists.”
Prosecutors said Bendaoud served five years of an eight-year prison sentence for beating someone to death.
A woman friend of Bendaoud who was also taken into custody by police told AFP she had slept in the apartment last week and the dwelling was “a kind of squat.”
The two were among seven people held by police during the raid on the apartment, which left two suspected jihadists dead, including a women suicide bomber.
The operation comes as part of a manhunt for those involved or accomplices to the worst-ever terror attack on French soil.
Islamic State jihadists claimed to be behind the coordinated attack on the Stade de France, a rock concert, bars and restaurants.
The French national stadium where three suicide bombers blew themselves up, killing one person, is close to the apartment raided by police.
