Police Services Dysfunction Exposed: Scathing Report on Brussels Terrorist Attack

2024-04-04 08:43:00

According to our information, the Committee will submit a scathing report this Thursday regarding the police services to the Minister of the Interior, Annelies Verlinden (CD&V). The Standing Committee for Control of Police Services retraces the facts which led to the terrorist attack perpetrated on October 16, 2023 in Brussels and which caused the death of two Swedes.

On October 16, Abdesalem Lassoued shot dead two Swedish tourists. In a video message of demand posted on social networks, the man presented himself as the attacker and said he was inspired by the Islamic State. It subsequently emerged that the terrorist was on file and that it was because of internal dysfunctions in the security services that the man might not be stopped in time. The discovery of this flaw pushed the Minister of Justice, Vincent Van Quickenborne (Open VLD), to submit his resignation.

Attack in Brussels: Abdesalem L. was convicted in Sweden for drug offenses

The Committee P report returns to this episode and highlights the various dysfunctions in the monitoring of Abdesalem Lassoued. The external control body for police officials noted in particular that a spelling error had crept into the terrorist’s file. Because his name was misspelled, police reportedly believed there were two Abdesalem Lassoueds. It was only following the attack once morest the Swedes that the police noticed that it was the same person…

On this case, the report also points to a lack of communication between the different police zones.

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