BRUSSELS (CNN) — One of two terrorists previously identified by a Belgian official as a senior ringleader of the November 13 Paris attacks was killed this week in a police raid on a Brussels apartment, the Belgium Federal Prosecutor’s office said Friday.
Algerian Mohamed Belkaid, who used the name Samir Bouzid, is believed to have directed the attackers in calls from Belgium, helped Paris suspect Salah Abdeslam travel prior to the attacks and transferred money to a female cousin of Paris ringleader Abdelhamid Abaaoud following the attack, the Belgian senior counter-terrorism official told CNN in January.
Belkaid died Tuesday during an intense firefight as authorities moved in on the Brussels apartment. A special forces sniper killed him, the prosecutor’s office said.
The office also revealed that Abdelslam’s fingerprints and DNA were found in the apartment.
Authorities believe the 26-year-old Abdeslam was using the apartment as a hideout following the November 13 Paris attacks that left at least 130 people dead, according to the Belgian counter-terrorism official.
Two people escaped during the raid, and it is possible that Abdeslam was one of then, but Belgian security services don’t know for sure, a senior Belgian counter-terrorism official told CNN on Friday.
Later in the day, Belgian police took two people into custody in Brussels, according to a senior counter-terrorism official. Authorities are now trying to determine if one of them is Abdeslam.
Up until that point, the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office has only said that “the investigation continues day and night.
“It is currently not possible to give any additional information to avoid causing any damage to the investigation,” the agency said.
Belgian authorities are “not happy” that French media leaked evidence showing Abdeslam was in the Brussels apartment raided this week, Belgium Federal Prosecutor Eric Van Der Sijpt said Friday.
Investigators think Abdeslam may have been the driver of a black Renault Clio that dropped off three suicide bombers near the Stade de France, one of the attack sites. They also believe he had worn a suicide belt found on a Paris street after the attacks.
He is believed to have called friends to take him to Belgium after the attacks. They passed through police checkpoints, but Abdeslam had not yet been identified as a suspect and they were allowed to continue on their way.
Surveillance video emerged of him and another man at a gas station near the Belgian border the day after the attacks.
He has eluded authorities ever since.
In January, authorities found traces of explosives and Abdeslam’s fingerprints in another Brussels apartment.
Some theories have suggested he had returned to Syria following the attacks.
Abdeslam, a Belgian-born French citizen, is the brother of another attacker, Ibrahim Abdeslam.
He was a French citizen believed to have been the suicide bomber who detonated explosives outside a cafe on Boulevard Voltaire.
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