The Brussels prosecutor’s office invited the press this Sunday, October 22, 2023 following the attack on Monday, perpetrated by Tunisian Abdesalem Lassoued.
The press conference given by Johan Delmulle, Attorney General of Brussels, and Tim de Wolf, prosecutor of the King of Brussels, intervenes to explain the serious error concerning the extradition procedure of Lassoued in Tunisia.
Abdesalem Lassoued was sentenced to more than 26 years in prison in Tunisia in 2005, but escaped from prison in January 2011. On July 1, 2022, the authorities reported it via Interpol for his extradition.
On August 22, 2022, the administration of the Brussels prosecution received a copy of this report by e-mail. He stipulates that the extradition request is requested for a prison escape, it said, reports Sudinfo.
“On August 15, 2022, the Tunisian authorities sent Belgium an extradition request accompanied by a series of annexes. These documents were received on September 8, 2022 by the Brussels prosecutor’s office, through the Public Service Justice. The file was prepared on September 12, 2022 by the administration of the prosecution (…) but none of the colleagues concerned remember what happened to this specific file a year ago. ”, Details the Brussels prosecutor’s office.
“We can only assume, but this remains a hypothesis, that in the context of the usual mode of operation, these questions were probably discussed orally by an administrative collaborator and the treating magistrate.”
Recall that the Belgian Minister of Justice, Vincent Van Quickenborne, announced Friday, October 20, his resignation from the government on Friday, on the background of this scandal.
Abdesalem Lassoued was known to the Belgian authorities for crimes, including death threats made against an asylum seeker, according to justice. But he was not relieved in the database of the Coordination Organization for the Analysis of the Menace (OCAM), a federal agency.
The author of the Brussels attack died on Tuesday October 17, 2023 by succumbing to his injuries in the hospital. He had been touched by bullets during his arrest.
