Bulgarian authorities have arrested a man convicted of terrorism in Belgium as he entered the country through its border with Turkey, Bulgarian authorities announced on Thursday.
He was arrested yesterday, Wednesday, during a special operation carried out by the secret services and the border guard, he explained in a press release published by the Bulgarian prosecutor’s office.
According to the text, he was wanted “in connection with a sentence of twenty years in prison for terrorism imposed on him by a European court”, as well as a second sentence of nine years and five months imposed on him by a Turkish court.
When contacted by the French Agency, the prosecutor’s office declined to go into further details.
Bulgarian media report that this is Yassin Lassiri, allegedly a close associate of Abdelhamid Aboud – the coordinator of the terrorist attacks of November 13, 2015 that bloodied Paris.
A source close to the investigation confirmed that it is indeed Mr. Lassiri.
A representative of the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office assured the French Agency that a request for extradition is being prepared. “A person has been arrested who we will ask to be extradited,” he said.
Yassin Lassiri was sentenced in absentia in 2015 to 20 years in prison by a Brussels court in a trial involving a jihadist recruitment network in Belgium.
According to the Belgian press, Mr. Lassiri has Moroccan citizenship. His Belgian nationality was revoked in absentia in 2020.
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