Paris attacks suspect, Europe’s most wanted man, imprisoned in high security cell
Belgium’s official broadcaster VRT said that Abdelslam was kept in an “individual and special safety wing” at a high-security prison in the city of Bruge.
Abdeslam is “staying in an underground wing of the prison of Bruges in a cell 2 meters by 4 meters. To get to it one has to go through no less than 13 solid doors,” said VRT.
“For safety reasons, the bed is sealed to the floor and the toilet to the wall. He is not allowed any personnel effects,” not even a toothbrush, it said.
The wing was built to accommodate "people who pose an escape risk and those with behavioral problems,” Belgian prisons spokeswoman Kathleen Van De Vijver told AFP.
Abdeslam, who is said to be one of the top organizers of the Paris attacks, was detained after a gun battle with heavily-armed police in the Belgian capital after running for 126 days.
"It was a success against terrorism," Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel said while praising the security forces who carried out the raid.
Following Tuesday’s explosion in Brussels airport and a metro station, the Belgian federal prosecutor's office announced that Abdeslam's fingerprints were discovered in the district of Forest, after he was reportedly seized in a raid on a Brussels apartment.
The Belgian capital has been on high alert since Abdeslam’s arrest there on Friday. He is the only surviving known suspect of last year’s Paris attacks.
Abdeslam is a Belgian-born French national who was Europe's most-wanted fugitive. He is fighting extradition to France to be tried for the November 13 attacks in which some 130 people were killed.
Belgian police on Wednesday arrested the third suspect of the airport bombings, hours after two suicide bombers involved in the attacks were identified as brothers.
The third man caught on surveillance cameras was identified as Najim Laachraoui, who was arrested Wednesday morning in the Belgian commune of Anderlecht, Belgium’s La Dernière Heure tabloid reported, citing well informed sources inside the police.
DNA testing had determined that Laachraoui, 24, was also behind the bombs used in the November 13 Paris massacres, in which 130 people were killed.
He is believed to have made the suicide vests used in the Paris attacks. Media reports quoted a French police official as saying that Laachraoui’s DNA was found on all the vests, as well as in a Brussels apartment where they were made.
Earlier Wednesday, Belgian police identified the brothers behind the airport attacks as Khalid and Brahim el-Bakraoui.
Belgium’s public broadcaster RTBF said the brothers had criminal records and were known to police.
Two explosions at the airport and another at a metro station on Tuesday left some 35 dead and 250 wounded, plunging the Belgian capital into a lockdown.
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