Brussels cop convicted of sharing info with terrorist network

Brussels cop convicted of sharing info with terrorist network
Credit: Belga

A police officer in Brussels has been jailed for four years after prosecutors found he had acted as an informant for the brother of a man seen as the mastermind of the Brussels and Paris attacks.

The 53-year-old officer with the Brussels North police zone was sentenced to 50 months imprisonment, his lawyers confirmed on Friday.

Prosecutors concluded that the officer had shared confidential information on ongoing investigations, namely terror-related ones, with the brother of Oussama Atar.

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Believed to have died in Syria in 2017, Atar has been identified as the brains of the cross-border terror cell that carried out the attacks that bloodied Brussels and Paris in 2016 and 2015, respectively.

Investigators said that the officer met with Atar's brother, Yassine, at least 203 times in the period going from September 10, 2015, to March 20, 2016.

But the investigation further revealed that the officer had been feeding confidential information to Atar since at least 2014, using his access to official records such as the national or vehicle registries.

In one instance, investigators said that the officer used the records to warn Yassin if a person arriving in Brussels Airport was in the radar of anti-terrorist police in Belgium.

While the court on Friday convicted the officer to 50 months in prison, his sentence was suspended for 18 months, or the equivalent of time he had spent in pre-trial detention.

Gabriela Galindo
The Brussels Times


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