Blast-hit Brussels Airport to reopen today

Brussels Airport is to reopen on Sunday (3rd April), 12 days after its departure hall was wrecked by Islamic State suicide bombings, with chief executive Arnaud Feist announcing three flights.

“From Sunday morning, Brussels Airport should be partially operational,” Feist told a press conference Saturday, adding that the resumption of services “plays an important role in our grieving process”.

Third suspect charged

Also, Belgium on Saturday charged a third suspect with terrorist activities over a foiled plot to attack France, federal prosecutors said.

They named the suspect only as 35-year-old Y.A., but gave no further details.

The main plot suspect is Reda Kriket, who was arrested near Paris last week after police found an arsenal of weapons and explosives at his home.

Salah Abdeslam, the Paris attacks suspect who was arrested in Brussels last month, refused to blow himself up on the day of the attacks, his brother Mohamed told French news channel BFM TV. Abdeslam, who will be extradited to France, has renewed an offer to cooperate with French authorities investigating the Nov. 13 attacks that killed 130 people, his lawyer said this week.

“There would have been more victims had I done it,” Salah Abdeslam told his brother. “Luckily, I couldn’t go through with it.”

After his arrest in Brussels on March 18, Abdeslam answered some investigators’ questions but then exercised his right to silence following the suicide bombings in Brussels. (The Hindu)

-news.lk