Fingerprints and DNA led to clues and there is perhaps yet another Paris attacker still at large. Update, it appears all have been captured as of evening time in Belgium.
Shot in the knee.
(CNN) Belgian police conducted a raid Friday in Brussels that ended with two suspects in custody — one of whom may be wanted Paris terror attack suspect Salah Abdeslam, a senior counter-terrorism official said.
Earlier in the day, the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office revealed the 26-year-old’s fingerprints and DNA were found in a Brussels apartment raided two days earlier. One person was killed and two people escaped that operation, according to authorities.
The man killed by a special forces sniper was Mohamed Belkaid, an Algerian who used the name Samir Bouzid, is believed to have directed the November 13 Paris attackers via calls from Belgium, according to the prosecutor’s office.
Belkaid is believed to have helped Paris suspect Salah Abdeslam travel prior to the attacks and transferred money to a female cousin of Paris ringleader Abdelhamid Abaaoud following the attack, the Belgian senior counter-terrorism official told CNN in January.
Authorities believe the 26-year-old Abdeslam was using the apartment as a hideout following the November 13 Paris attacks that left at least 130 people dead, according to the Belgian counter-terrorism official.
Up until Friday evening, the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office has only said that “the investigation continues day and night.
“It is currently not possible to give any additional information to avoid causing any damage to the investigation,” the agency said.
Belgian authorities are “not happy” that French media leaked evidence showing Abdeslam was in the Brussels apartment raided this week, Belgium Federal Prosecutor Eric Van Der Sijpt said Friday.
Investigators think Abdeslam may have been the driver of a black Renault Clio that dropped off three suicide bombers near the Stade de France, one of the attack sites. They also believe he had worn a suicide belt found on a Paris street after the attacks.
He is believed to have called friends to take him to Belgium after the attacks. They passed through police checkpoints, but Abdeslam had not yet been identified as a suspect and they were allowed to continue on their way.
Surveillance video emerged of him and another man at a gas station near the Belgian border the day after the attacks.
He has eluded authorities ever since.
In January, authorities found traces of explosives and Abdeslam’s fingerprints in another Brussels apartment.
Some theories have suggested he had returned to Syria following the attacks.
Abdeslam, a Belgian-born French citizen, is the brother of another attacker, Ibrahim Abdeslam. He was a French citizen believed to have been the suicide bomber who detonated explosives outside a cafe on Boulevard Voltaire.
