Belgium arrests three suspected accomplices in the killing of two football fans

Belgian authorities have charged three suspected accomplices of a Tunisian gunman who killed two Swedish football fans in Brussels last month, prosecutors said on Wednesday.

Abdesalem Lassoued, a radicalized 45-year-old, shot dead the fans before a Belgium-Sweden international on October 16 and was fatally shot in a police operation after.

The three suspects were arrested on Monday during searches in Flanders and the Brussels region, said the federal prosecutor’s office.

Two were charged with “murder and attempted murder in a terrorist context” and with participating in the activities of a terrorist group.

The third was charged with breaking arms legislation.

Four suspects are now detained in connection with the investigation in Belgium. Other arrests have been made in France and Spain in parallel probes.

The shootings have renewed debate in Belgium over judicial and administrative errors made in following up on suspected radicals, particularly by the immigration services.

Official documents showed that Lassoued had lodged asylum applications in Norway, Sweden, Italy and Belgium. He had stayed in Belgium illegally after one asylum bid was rejected in 2020.