Two Belgians have been charged in connection with the Paris attacks after driving suspected Paris gunman Salah Abdeslam from Paris to Brussels early Sunday.
The men were quoted by Belgian prosecutors and defense lawyers as saying they received a call from Abdeslam at 2 a.m. local time asking them to pick him up, reported The Guardian. They drove to Paris and met up with him at 5 a.m., then returned to Brussels.
Moroccan nationals Mohammed Amri, 27, and Hamza Attouh, 21, were detained on Saturday along with five others from Molenbeek. The other five were released, but Amri and Attouh were formally arrested on Monday on charges of terrorist attack and participation in activities of a terrorist group, prosecutors said on Tuesday.
"They have been charged with complicity in terrorist attacks and participation in the activities of terrorist organisations," a spokesman for the federal prosecutor's office said, according to AFP.
According to officials and lawyers quoted in the Belgian press, the men claimed they knew nothing about the attacks and that there was no mention of the mass killings as the trio made their way back to Brussels. It is believed that a car containing Abdeslam was stopped and checked by a road patrol near the border at Cambrai but was allowed to drive on, according to Bloomberg.
Rumors suggest that ammonium nitrate or bullets had been found at the two men's homes in Molenbeek, however officials have yet to confirm that claim. According to the Belgian newspaper La Libre, the two men claimed that the chemical had been intended as a garden fertilizer.
"The search was negative and no judicial arrests were made," Belgian prosecutors said of the 2.5-hour police operation that took place on Monday in Molenbeek's rue Delaunoy.
