Accessibility links

Breaking News

Belgium Searching for Possible Accomplice in Jewish Museum Attack


A Belgian soldier guards the entrance of the Jewish Museum in central Brussels, Jan. 18, 2015.
A Belgian soldier guards the entrance of the Jewish Museum in central Brussels, Jan. 18, 2015.

Belgian police say they are looking for a possible accomplice to the gunman accused of killing four people in an attack on a Jewish museum in May.

A spokesman for Belgium's federal prosecutor confirmed Friday that authorities are looking for a man seen walking alongside the suspect, French national Mehdi Nenmouche, near a railway station four days after the May 24 attack.

Nenmouche was arrested a week after the attack at a bus station in the southern French city of Marseilles. He was in possession of a Kalashnikov rifle and a handgun resembling the weapons used in the museum shootings. Authorities say Nenmouche had been in Syria the previous year, aiding Islamic extremists.

In museum surveillance video released after the attack, the gunman can be seen entering the building, taking a Kalashnikov automatic rifle from a bag and opening fire.

Anti-Semitism is strongly suspected as the motive behind the attack. Two of the victims were museum employees and two were Israelis tourists.

Material for this report came from AP and Reuters.

  • 16x9 Image

    VOA News

    The Voice of America provides news and information in more than 40 languages to an estimated weekly audience of over 326 million people. Stories with the VOA News byline are the work of multiple VOA journalists and may contain information from wire service reports.

XS
SM
MD
LG