Belgium frees five held in Paris attacks probe
AFP
December 22, 2015, 5:11 am
Brussels (AFP) - A Belgian judge on Monday released five people without charge after they were arrested in a series of raids in connection with last month's Paris attacks, prosecutors said Monday.
Three people including two brothers were arrested in a raid on a house in central Brussels on Sunday, while two others were detained in a separate raid in a north Brussels suburb on Monday.
"The investigating judge, specialised in terrorism cases, has released all five persons who were arrested during operations yesterday evening and this morning, after thorough interrogation by the Federal Judicial Police," the federal prosecutor's office said in a statement.
"The investigation continues."
Belgian police are still actively looking for Brussels-born Salah Abdeslam, 26, suspected of having played a key role in the Paris attacks and understood to have returned to the Belgian capital the day after the bloodshed.
A source close to the Belgian investigation told AFP Sunday that Abdeslam made it past three police checks when friends drove him from Paris to Brussels in the hours after the coordinated gun attacks and suicide bombings that left 130 people dead.
Several people have since been charged with helping him on his return to Brussels.
