A Belgian guard working in a nuclear facility was killed and his access badge was stolen two days after the deadly Brussels attacks that killed 31 people, according to Belgian media.
The access badge was deactivated as soon as the police discovered the incident in Charleroi, 50 km from Brussels, Belgian newspaper DH reported. The police are still searching for the culprit.
The same newspaper reported last week that the Brussels attackers were actually intending to attack the nuclear site, but they altered their plans following the arrest of one of their members.
Two suicide bombers in the Belgium attacks were named by police as brothers Khalid and Ibrahim El-Bakraoui. The third suspect Najim Laachraoui is still on the run.
At a press conference on Wednesday, Belgium’s top prosecutor Frederic van Leeuw said Laachraoui did not detonate his bomb, which was the largest and potentially most damaging of the three bombs, and remains at large.
A wave of explosions, for which “Islamic State” (IS) claimed responsibility, rocked Brussels on Tuesday, killing over 30 civilians and injuring at least 200 others in a terrorist attack at the Zaventem Brussels Airport and the Maelbeek metro station.
“The militia of [IS] carried out a series of explosions on Tuesday using bomb belts to target an airport and a metro station in the middle of the Belgian capital,” said the IS-affiliated Aamaq news agency.
According to Belgian authorities, Laachraoui was wanted by the police for possible connections to the Paris attacks that killed 130 in November 2015. Laachraoui, known as the “chief ISIS bomb maker” according to Belgian media, allegedly travelled to Syria in 2013, similar to other suspects in the Paris attacks.
Brussels airport will not resume its flights before Tuesday.
