DNA of Brussels suicide bomber ‘found at Paris attacks sites’

Belgian prosecutors have named the second suicide bomber in Tuesday’s bombing of Brussels’ airport as Najim Laachraoui, and said that his DNA was found at sites of the November Paris attacks.

They confirmed that 24-year-old Laachraoui was the bomber pictured on the left of a surveillance camera image captured before the blast at the departures area. He was pushing a luggage trolley that contained a bomb hidden inside a suitcase.

He is suspected of being the bomb-maker who supplied devices for the Paris attacks on 13 November.

The prosecutor confirmed that his DNA was found on a suicide belt at the Bataclan music venue and on an explosive device at the Stade de France, on the day of the attacks.

He used the false name Soufiane Kayal and was with suspected Paris attack mastermind Salah Abdeslam in Hungary in September 2015.

The news came as three people were arrested in Brussels in connection with Tuesday’s attacks. Prosecutors said that tge arrests were linked to a raid in Paris on Thursday, where an attack was allegedly foiled.

Other suspects have been arrested in Belgium, Germany and France.

Brothers Brahim and Khalid el-Bakraoui have already been named as two suicide bombers who carried out attack that left 31 people dead. Brahim was part of the attack on the airport that killed 11 people, while Khalid struck at the Maelbeek metro, where 20 people died.

Turkey said that it had arrested and deported Brahim el-Bakraoui last June, warning Belgium that he was a “foreign fighter” – but the message was “ignored”.

The Belgian interior and justice ministers said that they had offered their resignations but prime minister Charles Michel refused to accept them.