The terrorist who killed two Swedish football fans in Brussels last Monday was a prisoner in Tunisia.

Belgian prosecutors say Abdesalem Lassoued was sentenced to 26 years in prison in 2005 for crimes including attempted murder. Six years later, he escaped and arrived illegally on the Italian island of Lampedusa. In 2016, Italian intelligence services identified him as a radicalized subject and began monitoring him.

From Lampedusa, Lassuede moved to Belgium, where he applied for asylum. His request was rejected and he fell off the radar of the authorities. He applied for asylum in three other European countries: Norway, Sweden and Italy.

In August 2022, Belgian authorities received an extradition request from Tunisian authorities for Lassuede, but did not process it.

Belgium's justice minister, Vincent Van Quickenborne, resigned on Friday over the authorities' "monumental and unacceptable mistake with dramatic consequences".

"I want to sincerely apologize to the victims and their families," Van Quickenborne said during his statement. Adding, "I'm not looking for excuses, I want to take political responsibility." Prosecutor Tim de Wolf blamed a lack of staff in his office in Brussels for the failure to comply with the extradition request. He said the extradition file was received in September 2022 and was probably forgotten in a filing cabinet.

"None of the colleagues involved remember what happened to this particular file a year ago. There is no sign that it was processed," de Wolf said.

The prosecutor did not say why Lassuede was jailed, but Belgian media reported that he had an effective sentence for two attempted murders. He was also convicted in Sweden of drug trafficking, where he served a two-year sentence. According to Swedish media, he was arrested in Malmö for possession of 100 grams of cocaine.

After a series of Quran burnings outside embassies, mosques and the Swedish parliament by anti-Islam activists sparked angry reactions in Muslim countries, the government warned of an increased risk to Swedish citizens. In August, the terror alert was raised to the second-highest level after threats from Islamic extremists.

The shooting is being treated by Belgian prosecutors as a terrorist attack - and comes at a time of heightened security concerns across Europe over Israel's war with Hamas. Belgium announced extra security measures in response to last week's attack. The Brussels public prosecutor's office, the federal judicial police and the railway police will receive additional staff.

The flow of information between the immigration office, the police and the judiciary will also be strengthened. The Swedish security service, known as SÄPO, said it was "working closely with the Belgian authorities".

The attack in Brussels, which left a man in his 70s and a man in his 60s dead, shocked Sweden.

On the evening of Monday, October 16, Lassoued, a 45-year-old man from Tunisia, began shooting at passers-by with an assault rifle in downtown Brussels. He then chased people into the hallway of an apartment building, where he shot and killed two Swedish football fans and wounded a third. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack. After a manhunt, the gunman was tracked down to a cafe near his home in Schaerbeek, northern Brussels, and shot dead by police.

Follow Novinite.com on Twitter and Facebook

Write to us at editors@novinite.com

Информирайте се на Български - Novinite.bg