Belgian prosecutors said Monday they had arrested a high-profile expert on jihadi fighters for allegedly providing one suspected extremist with a false affidavit that he was on a deradicalisation course. Montasser AlDe'emeh runs a centre in Brussels' gritty Molenbeek district - where several of those who carried out attacks in November lived - that aims to prevent young Belgians from going to fight in Syria and also help reintegrate those who do so on their return.
Federal prosecutors said he was suspected "of having drawn up and submitted a false affidavit concerning a deradicalistion course taken by Jawad O. at the centre." Jawad O. was arrested on November 24, the prosecutors said, a few days after Islamist jihadists left 130 people dead in a series of attacks across Paris which increasingly appear to have been coordinated from Brussels.