Belgian authorities announced Saturday that they’ve formally identified the second person seen in surveillance footage from the attack at the Brussels metro, part of coordinated terror attacks on the city that killed 32 people March 22.
Osama Krayem — also known as Naim al Hamed — is seen along side eventual suicide bomber Khalid El Bakraoui, according to the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office.
A French source close to the investigation into ISIS’ terror network in France and Belgium told CNN that European security agencies believe Krayem, or Hamed, played an operational role in the attack.
Krayem, who was one of six terror suspects taken into custody Friday around Belgium, has been charged with “participation to the activities of a terrorist group and terrorist murders,” according to the prosecutor’s office.
Belgium suspect linked to Paris attacks
Also arrested on Friday was Mohamed Abrini, who was detained with two others in an operation in Anderlecht, Belgian federal prosecutor’s spokesman Thierry Werts told reporters on Friday.
Abrini has been tied through surveillance video and DNA to last November’s terror attacks on Paris, which left 130 people dead.
One theory among authorities is that Abrini was the lone survivor in the attack on the airport — the man in a hat shown in surveillance video rolling luggage carts with two men now thought to be suicide bombers.
The two other suspects arrested in Friday’s raids, 27-year-old Bilal Al Makhoukhi, and a Rwandan national identified as Hervé B.M. — are accused of helping Abrini and Krayem. Both have been charged with “participation to the activities of a terrorist group and terrorist murders,” according to the prosecutor.
It is not clear if the remaining two detained, neither of whom have been named, have been or will be charged.
Fresh round of raids
On Saturday, witnesses said about 50 police officers descended on an apartment in the Brussels neighborhood of Etterbeek.
Authorities said they suspected the apartment of being a safe house, but Saturday’s search turned up no weapons or explosives, the prosecutor’s office said.