Europe

France arrests suspect over Brussels Museum shooting

29-year-old spent a year in Syria after becoming radicalised in French jail

A woman stands at the entrance of the closed Jewish Museum in Brussels last week. Photograph: Reuters
A woman stands at the entrance of the closed Jewish Museum in Brussels last week. Photograph: Reuters
Sun Jun 01 2014 - 19:52

The 29-year-old Frenchman arrested on Friday over the fatal shooting of three people at Brussels' Jewish Museum spent a year in Syria after becoming radicalised during the last of five stays in jail in France.

When he was arrested in the southern France city of Marseille, Mehdi Nemmouche was carrying in his luggage weapons and clothes similar to those used in the shooting last weekend, Paris prosecutor Francois Molins told a news conference, saying there was a “strong body of evidence” tying him to the killings.

“During his last stay in jail he was noticed for extremist (Islamic) proselytism,“ Molins said. “On December 31st, 2012, three weeks after he was freed, he travelled to Syria.”

A handout image provided by the Belgian Federal Police of the man suspected of carrying out a shooting incident on May 24th at the Jewish Museum in central Brussels. Photograph: EPA
A handout image provided by the Belgian Federal Police of the man suspected of carrying out a shooting incident on May 24th at the Jewish Museum in central Brussels. Photograph: EPA
Flowers bearing the words, ‘Thou shalt not kill’ are set amid candles outside the Jewish Museum in Brussels. Photograph: Reuters
Flowers bearing the words, ‘Thou shalt not kill’ are set amid candles outside the Jewish Museum in Brussels. Photograph: Reuters

“He spent over a year in Syria, where he seems to have joined the ranks of combatant groups, jihadist terrorist groups.”

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Nemmouche is being held on charges of murder, attempted murder and possession of weapons, all of which in the framework of a terrorist activity, Molins said.

Nemmouche has said nothing so far, he added.

The 29-year-old was arrested in the southern French city of Marseille on Friday and had a Kalashnikov and another gun with him, a French police source said.

An Israeli couple and a French woman were killed on May 24th when a man entered the Jewish Museum in busy central Brussels and opened fire with a Kalashnikov rifle. A Belgian man remains in critical condition in hospital.

French president Francois Hollande confirmed a suspect had been arrested and said France was determined to do all it could to stop radicalised youths from carrying out attacks.

“We will monitor those jihadists and make sure that when they come back from a fight that is not theirs, and that is definitely not ours ... to make sure that when they come back they cannot do any harm,“ Mr Hollande told reporters.

The message “to these jihadists is that we will fight them, we will fight them and we will fight them“, he said.

Mr Hollande has said previously the attack was motivated by anti-Semitism.

Police released a 30-second video clip from the museum‘s security cameras showing a man wearing a dark cap, sunglasses and a blue jacket enter the building, take a rifle out of a bag and shoot into a room before calmly walking out.

Agencies