Key Brussels suspect arrested

reporting from BERLIN —  A man suspected of being the mysterious “man in the hat” and thought to have been involved in the deadly terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels was arrested in the Belgian capital after a manhunt throughout Europe, authorities said Friday.

Mohamed Abrini, a 31-year-old Belgian citizen of Moroccan origin, was one of five suspects arrested in raids Friday. All are thought to be linked to last month’s Brussels bombings.

Authorities said they are still trying to determine whether Abrini is the man seen in a video image wearing a dark hat and a white trench coat as he pushed a luggage trolley along with two other men just before the attacks at Brussels Airport in Zaventem.

The other two men in the image were identified as the bombers who died during the March 22 attack at the airport. The man wearing the hat is believed to have abandoned a suicide belt at the airport and fled during the chaos after the explosion.

If Abrini’s role in the Brussels attack is confirmed, it would represent a break for security agencies in Belgium, who have faced withering criticism since the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris, where Brussels-born terrorist figures were blamed for killing 130 people. Last month’s attacks at the airport and a subway platform in Brussels killed 32.

“This investigation is trying to determine as to whether or not Mohamed Abrini was the third person at the Zaventem airport — the so-called ‘man in the hat,’” Thierry Werts, a spokesman for Belgian federal prosecutors, told reporters.

Abrini’s arrest means that authorities now have potentially two key players in the Paris attacks in custody. Terrorism suspect Salah Abdeslam was arrested in Brussels in March, just days before the attacks there.

Belgian media reports were trumpeting the arrest of Abrini, with news network VRT saying on its website that Abrini was “more than likely” the wanted “man in the hat.”

VRT and RTBF, another network, said authorities believe Abrini was partially disguised with thick glasses and a floppy hat as the airport cameras filmed him pushing the luggage cart next to Ibrahim El Bakraoui and Najim Laachraoui, identified as the airport bombers. Bakraoui’s brother, Khalid El Bakraoui, is thought to have set off a separate bomb in a subway train near the European Union headquarters in Brussels.

Belgian Interior Minister Jan Jambon, who has been criticized over the attacks and had offered to resign, expressed his congratulations on Twitter to the police and security services involved in the arrests. “The struggle against terrorism continues,” Jambon tweeted.

Officials have conceded that they made mistakes before the attack. Ibrahim El Bakraoui had been expelled from Turkey, a known transit route for militants trying to join the war in Syria, and he was never questioned by authorities when he returned to Belgium.

The Bakraoui brothers had criminal records but were never directly linked to terrorism. Abrini has a criminal record of violent theft. He had a younger brother who was killed while fighting for Islamic State militants in 2014.

Belgian police had issued a series of new images and details about the “man in the hat” Thursday that showed him leaving the airport and then heading west into the neighborhood of Schaerbeek.

Police urged citizens to help look for his trench coat, which may have been discarded as he fled. Belgian media said his image had been captured earlier on security cameras as he went shopping in a downtown mall for items later used in the bombings.

In the weeks since the attacks, Belgian authorities have arrested at least five other men in raids in Brussels and its outskirts.

Kirschbaum is a special correspondent.

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