Politic?

Belgian Public Confidence in Police?

It was not keen-eyed police investigators searching the area after the Brussels bombing on the 22nd of March who recovered key evidence, but according to the Dernier Heure newspaper, a cleaning team fom Bruxelles Proprete, who found a computer thrown in the trash, and immediately contacted officers from the Montgomery police detachment in Brussels. Within the computer a peculiar type of last testament was discovered; Ibrahim el-Bakraoui, complaining that he is being hunted and fears imprisonment.

He did indeed have legitimate fears of imprisonment for he went out of his way, along with his brother Khalid, to earn prime place in a manhunt. In any event, both Khalid and Ibrahim el-Bakraoui and Najim Laachraoui as well succeeded in their plan to become martyrs, in the process taking along with their lost lives, another 32 of innocent people who just happened to be in the wrong place at the right time.

Ten people died at the Brussels metro station targeted by Khalid, and another 22 at the Brussels airport where Ibrahim and Najim performed their act of supreme obedient sacrifice to Islam.

Belgian police leave after an investigation in a house in Brussels. Photo: AP

However, it is what else that was discovered on the computer beside the will that is of immense discovery and importance. A file with photographs of the office of the Belgian prime minister, complete with floor plan. This is worrying serendipity, the discovery of the computer in a trash can. Although news sites claim it was discovered during a raid on Rue Max Roos in the Schaerbeek neighbourhood of Brussels just hours after the 22 March attack, that somewhat gilds the lily.

A third airport attacker is still on the loose, the man seen in a closed circuit video loop at the Brussels airport and thought to have been taken in by authorities but discovered soon afterward to be the wrong man in this particular context. And yet another attacker is being sought in connection with the Maelbeek subway station suicide bombing.

According to newer reports the computer contained data on the residence of the Belgian prime minister. Security around Prime Minister Charles Michel's residence and office has now been reinforced, the United States asked to aid in analyzing and decrypting data on the computer.

And it seems that the Dutch minister of security and justice has revealed that the New York Police Department had issued a warning to his government on March 16 of links to terrorism on the part of the el-Bakraoui brothers. According to Dutch minister Ard van der Steur, that information was passed on to Belgian authorities five days before the bombing.

Ibrahim el-Bakraoui had been arrested close to the Turkish border with Syria back in June. Which is when Turkish officials alerted the Belgian government, then proceeded to deport the man at his request, on to the Netherlands. Ibrahim el-Bakraoui was on parole from October 2014 relating to a nine-year prison sentence for attempted murder while his brother Khalid had a history of carjacking.

From petty and attempted capital crime on to global jihad; quite the curricula vitae. People with these types of backgrounds require careful and ongoing scrutiny. The price paid for setting aside intelligence gleaned from outside sources is a steep one, just ask the grieving families of those whose bodies were blown into a puzzle of disparate parts.