The attorney for two former hostages told CNN that her clients have identified Brussels bomber Najim Laachraoui as an ISIS jailer of foreign hostages in Syria.
Laachraoui, 24, was one of two suicide bombers in the March 22 attacks at the Brussels Airport. Those attacks and another one the same day at a subway station in Brussels killed 32 people and wounded more than 300 others.
The lawyer, Marie-laure Ingouf, said Friday that four former French hostages — her clients, Nicolas Henin and Pierre Torres, and the journalists Didier François and Edouard Elias — have identified Laachraoui as their jailer. The journalists were held with Henin and Torres for 10 months between June 2013 and April 2014 before being released.
Ingouf said that her clients say Mehdi Nemmouche, in custody accused of killing four people in a 2014 attack on the Jewish Museum in Brussels, was a guard alongside Laachraoui and that the two of them were “friendly.” They also guarded James Foley and other unnamed hostages killed by ISIS, she said.
Belgian authorities declined to comment to CNN.