PARIS — A third man has been charged in Belgium in connection with a foiled plot to stage a major terrorist attack in France, officials said Saturday. ADVERTISING PARIS — A third man has been charged in Belgium in connection
PARIS — A third man has been charged in Belgium in connection with a foiled plot to stage a major terrorist attack in France, officials said Saturday.
Authorities across Europe have been conducting raids and arresting suspects since the March 22 bombings that left 32 dead at Brussels Airport and a Brussels subway station.
The man who was charged in connection with the thwarted plot was identified by the federal prosecutor’s office in Brussels only by his initials, Y.A., a 33-year-old Belgian citizen. He was preliminarily charged with participation in the activities of a terrorist group. A judge ordered that he be detained.
Officials also announced that the airport will reopen Sunday with limited service.
Arnaud Feist, chief executive of Brussels Airport, said Saturday that the country had been through “the darkest days in the history of aviation in Belgium” and that the airport’s reopening was a “sign of hope.”
“As of tomorrow, Sunday, Brussels Airport should be partially operational,” Feist said at a news conference. The airport had been closed since the attacks, in which two suicide bombers detonated explosives in the departures hall.
A police spokesman, Michael Jonniaux, said there would be new security measures at the airport, including spot checks of vehicles and checks of people and baggage entering the airport terminal — which will be open only to those with travel documents and identification.
Feist said that there will be three flights Sunday — to Faro, Portugal; Turin, Italy; and Athens, Greece — and that passengers would be processed in temporary constructions. He added that for the time being, the airport would be accessible only by taxi or car.
Y.A. is the third person in Belgium to be charged as an accomplice of Reda Kriket, 34, a Frenchman who was arrested outside Paris on March 24.
French officials say Kriket had amassed an arsenal of weapons and bomb-making equipment — including the type of explosive material that was used by suicide bombers who attacked Paris on Nov. 13 and Brussels on March 22. He was charged on numerous counts, including terrorist conspiracy and possession of weapons.
Kriket’s arrest prevented an “imminent” attack on France, according to the country’s interior minister and the public prosecutor in Paris.
