Belgium’s justice minister Koen Geens said Belgian authorities arrested a sixth person late on Friday in connection with the suicide attacks in Brussels.
Mohamed Abrini, one of four suspects charged Saturday with terrorist murder in the Brussels attacks last month, confessed to being the elusive “man in the hat” seen in surveillance video shortly before bombs went off at Brussels Airport, Belgian prosecutors said.
The suspect, seen in that footage accompanying two terrorists who blew themselves up, also appeared on surveillance video that showed him leaving the airport and making his way through Brussels streets.
“We confronted him with the video evidence prepared by our special unit,” the prosecutors’ office said. “He had to admit it was him.”
Abrini also told authorities he dumped his coat in a trash can as he threaded his way through Brussels streets and sold the infamous soft, floppy hat seen in the videos. The attacks at the airport and a downtown metro shortly afterward on March 22 killed 32 people.
Abrini was arrested a day after authorities released several videos of the suspect and appealed to the public for information on his whereabouts.
Abrini, Osama K., Herve B. M. and Bilal E. M. were all charged with participating in “terrorist murders” and the “activities of a terrorist group” in connection with the attacks.
One of the suspects, identified by Belgian media by his full name, Osama Krayem, is believed linked to the subway attack.
Abrini was already the object of a massive European manhunt following the Nov. 13 terror attacks in Paris that left 130 people dead. The Belgian-Moroccan was seen on surveillance video driving another terror suspect, Salah Abdeslam, to Paris two days before the deadly rampage. Abdeslam was arrested by Belgian police four days before the Brussels terror attacks.
Belgian broadcaster VRT reported Saturday that one of the latest suspects, identified by his full name, Bilal El Makhoukhi, was convicted last year in a trial in Antwerp for involvement in the radical group Sharia4Belgium. He was serving his sentence at home while outfitted with an electronic surveillance tag.
El Makhoukhi went to Syria in 2012 but returned to Belgium after losing his leg while fighting with Islamic extremists, according to VRT.