On Friday, Belgian authorities arrested Mohamed Abrini, the last suspect in the Paris terrorist attacks last November. Now it turns out that Abrini has also confessed to being the “man in the hat,” who was caught on security footage in Brussels’ Zaventem airport with the two suicide bombers in the Belgian terrorist attacks.
According to NBC News, Belgium’s federal prosecutor announced on Saturday that Abrini had confessed to being the third suspect. He’s seen pushing an airport luggage cart alongside the two men who blew themselves up at the Brussels airport, wearing a light jacket and a dark hat. He apparently told authorities about “having thrown away his vest in a garbage bin and having sold his hat afterwards.”
Abrini had also been caught on camera at a gas station with one of the previously known suspects in the Paris attacks, two days before they took place. His arrest and confession provide more evidence that the two attacks are linked. He has so far only been charged in the Paris attacks.
Authorities had been trying to find the “man in the hat” ever since finding this security footage. On Thursday, they released additional footage of Abrini “leaving the airport in the wake of the bombings, walking down sidewalks and past a hotel,” as quoted in the Associated Press.
(via NBC News and Associated Press)