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Two Britons Jailed in Belgium for Funding Brussels Attack | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Caption:

This CCTV image from the Brussels Airport surveillance cameras made available by Belgian Police, shows what officials believe may be suspects in the Brussels airport attack on March 22, 2016. The Belgian state prosecutor said in a press conference on Tuesday, that a photograph of three male suspects was taken at Zaventem. “Two of them seem to have committed suicide attacks. The third, wearing a light-coloured jacket and a hat, is actively being sought,” the prosecutor said. REUTERS/CCTV/Handout via Reuters


London- Two Britons were jailed on Monday for funding terrorism by handing cash to Brussels bombing suspect Mohamed Abrini, “the man in the hat.”

Abrini, 31, was arrested in Belgium in April in connection with a suicide bombing at Brussels’ Zaventem Airport and a blast at a metro station in which 32 people died.

Abrini has been charged with being part of a terrorist organization and is awaiting trial.

Zakaria Boufassil, 26, was found guilty by a jury which heard that he and another man arranged a meeting with Abrini in a park in Small Heath, Birmingham, eight-months before the Brussels attacks.

Mohammed Ali Ahmed pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing.

On Monday, Boufassil was sentenced to three years in jail and Ahmed received eight years, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said.

Ahmed withdrew 3,000 pounds ($3,830) from an account set up by a third man and the pair handed over the cash to Abrini, the CPS said.

Abrini became known as the man in the hat from CCTV pictures of him pushing a trolley through Brussels airport before the blast.

On the other hand, 10 people were taken into custody in Nice on Monday morning on suspicion of having helped the attacker Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel obtain weapons.

An eleventh person was arrested in the north-western city of Nantes last Friday, according to a spokeswoman at the French prosecutor’s office.

Notably, on Bastille Day 86 people died when the Tunisian national drove a lorry down the packed Promenage des Anglais on France’s National Day on 14 July; more than 400 were injured.