Brussels attack: 2 charged in connection with terror group

French anti-terrorism prosecutors said Tuesday two men believed to have links with the gunman who carried out last week's deadly attack on Swedish football fans in Brussels have been charged in Paris.

The two, believed to be from Tunisia, face charges of forming a terrorist criminal group and having complicity in murder linked to a terrorist plot.

Investigators say they were still establishing the exact relationship between the two Paris suspects and the Tunisian gunman who killed two people and wounded another.

They were among four people arrested last week as part of the investigation into the Brussels attack.

Suspected shooter killed by police

Abdesalam L. is said to have shot dead two Swedish soccer fans and wounded a third before a Belgium-Sweden international football match in Brussels last week.

A day later, the suspected gunman was fatally shot in a police operation.

One of the Paris suspects knew the 45-year-old Tunisian man, but his lawyer, Souleymen Rakrouki, denied that he had any involvement with the incident in Brussels.

The attacker "is a friend he has known for a long time; he had not seen any sign of radicalization. He could have never imagined such an act," Rakrouki told French news agency AFP. 

Brussels attack fallout

Before he was shot, the suspected Brussels shooter identified himself as a member of the Islamic State.

Belgian Justice Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne announced his resignation on Friday after revealing that authorities failed to deport the suspect.

Van Quickenborne told a press conference that Tunisia had sought his extradition in August last year, but Belgian authorities did not act.

The shooter had already spent time in prison in Sweden, and his asylum claim was rejected by Belgian authorities in 2020.

lo/ab (AFP, EFE)