Khalid El Bakraoui | |
|---|---|
 ACCTV still of El Bakraoui shortly before theMaelbeek metro station bombing | |
| Born | (1989-01-12)12 January 1989 Brussels, Belgium |
| Status | Deceased |
| Died | 22 March 2016(2016-03-22) (aged 27) Brussels, Belgium |
| Known for | Involvement in the2016 Brussels bombings |
Khālid El Bakraoui (Arabic:خالد البكراوي; 12 January 1989 – 22 March 2016), also known asAbū Walīd al-Baljīkī, was a Belgian terrorist ofMoroccan descent, confirmed to be the suicide bomber at the metro station in the2016 Brussels bombings.
El Bakraoui was raised inLaken, a residential district in northwesternBrussels.[1] His father, a retired butcher and devout Muslim,emigrated from Morocco; his mother was described as "conservative and reclusive".[1] His brotherIbrahim has been identified as one of two suicide bombers atBrussels Airport.[2]
On 27 October 2009, he was one of three men involved in a bank robbery, in which they kidnapped an employee and forced her to drive them to her workplace in Brussels and deactivate the alarm. They made off with €41,000. About two weeks later, Khalid stole a vehicle and was later found with it and a number of other stolen vehicles in a warehouse. Though he was detained, he was not charged at the time.[1]
In 2011, El Bakraoui was arrested for the possession ofKalashnikov rifles. In September 2011, he was convicted of thecarjackings, possession of weapons, and the 2009 bank robbery, being sentenced to five years in prison. He was released from prison after serving most of his sentence.[1]
In May 2015, following his release, El Bakraoui was arrested upon meeting with a former criminal accomplice, which violated a term of hisparole, but a judge released him because he continued to meet the rest of his parole conditions. From October 2015, he failed his parole appointments and abandoned his address, resulting in a cancelled parole as of February 2016.[3]
In August 2015,Interpol issued a warrant for his arrest.[4] Two further arrest warrants were issued for El Bakraoui on 11 December 2015, one international and one European.[5] Both were issued by a Paris judge investigating theNovember 2015 Paris attacks, because El Bakraoui, using false documents,[6] rented the Charleroi house where fingerprints ofAbdelhamid Abaaoud, the mastermind of those attacks, as well as an involved suicide bomber, Bilal Hadfi, were found.[7]
According to a report by theDe Morgen daily, Belgian authorities, acting after they learned, in the summer of 2015, of his call on friends to help him obtain as many Kalashnikov chargers as possible, searched El Bakraoui's home in October 2015, found evidence of "calls to jihad" and "images of known terrorists", but found no weapons and therefore did not make an arrest.[8]
On 15 March 2016, El Bakraoui and his brotherIbrahim El Bakraoui evaded capture duringa police raid in Brussels.[9] On 16 March 2016, theFederal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the United States sent information about them to authorities in theNetherlands.[10] The New York Police Department's Intelligence Division also informed the Dutch embassy liaison in Washington, that they were wanted for "terrorism, extremism and recruitment".[11][12]
Khalid El Bakraoui has been identified as the suicide bomber atMaalbeek metro station inBrussels on 22 March 2016.[2]
Khalid el Barkaoui, a suicide bomber in the Brussels attacks who had been wanted in connection with the Paris attacks, was suspected of using falsified documents to rent a house in Charleroi that may have served as a base for the Paris terrorists, authorities said in March.