Lawyer: Brussels bomber was a jailor for Islamic State group

FILE - This is an image provided by the Belgian Federal Police on Monday, March 21, 2016, a combo photograph shows Najim Laachraoui, who was previously identified in a false passport as Soufiane Kayal by Belgium Federal Police, during a money transfer on Nov. 17, 2015 in a Western Union bank in the Brussels region of Belgium. The lawyer for two former French hostages says the man who blew himself up at Brussels Airport on March 22 was once a jailor for the Islamic State group. Marie-Laure Ingouf says Najim Laachraoui, who built the explosive belts used in the assaults on both capitals and blew himself up at Brussels Airport on March 22, was one of several jihadis who held the radical Muslim group’s hostages between 2013 and 2014. . (Belgian Federal Police via AP) FILE - This is an image provided by the Belgian Federal Police on Monday, March 21, 2016, a combo photograph shows Najim Laachraoui, who was previously identified in a false passport as Soufiane Kayal by Belgium Federal Police, during a money transfer on Nov. 17, 2015 in a Western Union bank in the Brussels region of Belgium. The lawyer for two former French hostages says the man who blew himself up at Brussels Airport on March 22 was once a jailor for the Islamic State group. Marie-Laure Ingouf says Najim Laachraoui, who built the explosive belts used in the assaults on both capitals and blew himself up at Brussels Airport on March 22, was one of several jihadis who held the radical Muslim group’s hostages between 2013 and 2014. . (Belgian Federal Police via AP)

By Associated Press April 22, 2016 3 min read

PARIS (AP) – The bomb maker for attacks on Paris and Brussels had a previous career as a jailor for the Islamic State group, a lawyer for one of his hostages said Friday.

Belgian authorities say Najim Laachraoui, a 24-year-old Belgian, built the explosive belts used in the assaults on both European capitals and blew himself up at Brussels Airport on March 22. He was also one of several jihadis who held some hostages captured in Syria, according to Marie-Laure Ingouf, who represents two former French captives.

“Laachraoui was one of the jailors of the French ex-hostages, and of other decapitated hostages, as they all shared the same cell,” she said in a statement.

Her statement, which also referred to beheaded American captives James Foley and Steven Sotloff, said Laachraoui was known at the time as Abou Idriss and worked alongside Mehdi Nemmouche, a Frenchman who is accused of a 2014 attack on the Brussels Jewish Museum.

Nemmouche had already been previously identified as a jihadi jailor in Syria by one of Ingouf’s clients, Nicolas Henin. A message left with Nemmouche’s lawyer, Sebastien Courtoy, was not immediately returned.