A manhunt for two suspects remains underway as authorities announced Monday that they had charged three men in connection with last week’s terrorist attacks in Brussels that killed 35 people and wounded more than 300 others.
The death toll rose early Monday when Ministry of Health spokesman Jan Eyckmans explained that four people injured in Tuesday’s blasts had died in hospitals.
In their search for suspects, police carried out 13 raids in and around Brussels and took nine people in for questioning Sunday, the federal prosecutor’s office said. Six of those were released after “in-depth interviews,” according to a statement, while three men remain in custody.
Identified only as Yassine A., Mohamed B. and Aboubaker O., they are charged with participating in the activities of a terrorist group, the federal prosecutor’s office said Monday.
Police have arrested several individuals, but authorities have yet to illuminate the roles any of those arrested may have played in the attacks.
One man arrested last week, identified only as Faycal C., was released by an investigating magistrate Monday after “clues that had led to (his) arrest … were not conclusive in the current investigation,” the federal prosecutor’s office said.
Faycal C. had been charged Friday with terrorist murder, participation in terrorist activities and attempted terrorist murder, the prosecutor said. Few other details were released, but the prosecutor’s office said at the time of his arrest that a search of the man’s home had yielded no weapons or explosives.
Under Belgian law, being charged means only that an individual is under investigation. That person may be released without trial if evidence does not allow authorities to proceed with charges.
There remains an ongoing manhunt for two attack suspects — one whom security cameras caught walking alongside the suicide bombers at the Brussels Airport and another who Belgian public broadcaster RTFB reported had been spotted on surveillance footage near suspected metro station bomber Khalid El Bakraou.
Yet the investigation is far from limited to Belgium. European security agencies have revealed they are looking for at least eight suspects they believe are linked to either the Brussels attacks or the November attacks on Paris.
An 11-page security bulletin circulated among Europe’s law enforcement agencies last week included their names. The bulletin, the details of which were shared with CNN by a source with access to the documents, said three of the suspects were either residents or had spent time in the Netherlands, Germany and Sweden, respectively.
Italian National Police announced they arrested an Algerian national in Salerno on Saturday. He is suspected of being part of a network that produced fake residency documents linked to the Brussels attacks, police said, adding on Twitter that the man was also wanted in Belgium over his involvement in clandestine immigration linked to the Paris attacks.
Identifying the victims
Fifteen of those killed at the airport in Zaventem and 13 who died at the metro station have been positively identified; 16 were Belgian, and 12 were foreigners from eight nationalities, though the Crisis Center cautioned some victims might have held dual citizenship.
Three families, it said, are still awaiting the results of DNA tests.
The death toll includes four Americans, a State Department official told CNN on Sunday. Previously officials had confirmed that two Americans were among the dead.
President Barack Obama called the parents of Americans Justin and Stephanie Shults on Sunday to express his condolences, a White House official said.
Protests at a memorial
As mourners gathered to commemorate the victims of the attacks, their peaceful gathering was interrupted Sunday by men raising their arms in Nazi salutes and shouting anti-immigrant slogans. Minor scuffles ensued, but police quickly defused the situation.
Several hundred men — most dressed in black, a handful with their faces totally or partially obscured, and many carrying alcoholic beverages — arrived on the square at around 2:45 p.m.
One demonstrator sparked a flare, and others lit firecrackers in the square. The nationalist demonstrators chanted, “We are at home,” and there were minor scuffles as people trampled through the flags, flowers, balloons and other items at the memorial.
Mourners countered the men’s chants with their own: “No to hatred” and “We are all the sons of immigrants.”
Backed by two white tactical vehicles with water cannons aimed at the crowd, riot police with helmets and shields formed a horseshoe around the anti-immigrant demonstrators, corralling them and pushing them down a nearby boulevard, away from the memorial.
With Brussels still on edge, authorities had earlier requested that a peace march planned for Easter be postponed, organizer Sophie Barthelemi said.
‘Devastated infrastructure’ at airport
Residents of Brussels are trying to return to some sense of normalcy in the wake of the attacks.
But the task is complicated by the continuing manhunt, complete with raids, gunfire, explosions and live news conferences.
And at the airport, where two bombings significantly damaged the facility, officials said they’re trying to get things up and running — but more work needs to be done. On Tuesday, hundreds of airport staffers will conduct tests of a temporary setup for security screenings, checking in and checking luggage, the airport said in a statement Sunday. But it’s too soon to say when the airport will reopen.
“The simple fact,” the statement said, “is that a restart in the short term is not possible in the devastated infrastructure.”