A 45-year-old Tunisian stayed in Belgium after being denied asylum. The shooter who killed two Swedes and seriously injured a third entered Sweden several times.
Abdeslam Lassoued, 45, is the main suspect of having killed two Swedish nationals this Monday and seriously injured another in a terrorist attack that led Brussels to activate the highest threat level, which is still maintained. The Tunisian requested asylum in Belgium in 2019, but was denied. Four years later, he took a Kalashnikov-type rifle and took to the streets of the country’s capital “to avenge the Muslims,” as he stated in a video shared on Facebook, under the name Slayem Slouma.
The perpetrator of the attack in the European city also maintained that “he who lives for religion also dies for it.” This Tuesday morning, after being seen in a cafe and an exchange of gunfire with the Belgian police, he was shot and ended up succumbing to two heart attacks while being taken to the hospital.
This is the Muslim terrorist who shot dead two Swedes this Monday in Brussels. In the video, which must be verified, the supposedly Tunisian Slayem Slouma claims to belong to ISIS and prides himself on having killed infidels (non-Muslims). pic.twitter.com/xksMZ75K1M
— Julio Marinho (see my pin) ????️????️???? (@JulioMarinho) October 16, 2023
When he shot two Swedish fans, present in the city during the match between the Belgian and Swedish soccer teams, Abdeslam was wearing a helmet and a fluorescent orange vest. Before reaching the victims he shouted “Allahu Akbar” (“Allah is Great”, in Portuguese). It is this garment that appears in several amateur videos on social networks that record before, during and after the attack.
Belgian newspaper Sudinfo reported that the 45-year-old man lived in Schaerbeek, the neighborhood where authorities spotted him and shot him. The same media reported that Abdeslam Lassoued had already been tried in Tunisia for terrorist acts and that he had been in Belgium illegally since 2019.
According to Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, who responded to the attack on Tuesday morning, the attacker occasionally visited Sweden. On Monday morning, hours before the attack, the man had already posted a video referring to the six-year-old Muslim boy who was stabbed 26 times in the United States of America (USA) on Sunday. Abdeslam argued that “if he had been a Christian,” the act “would have been called terrorism and not a brutal crime.”
Six-year-old Muslim boy stabbed to death 26 times in US
The possibility remains open that the perpetrator of the attack did not act alone. This Tuesday, the Sudinfo newspaper states that the police are looking for a second suspect. “We cannot confirm that the perpetrator acted alone,” Interior Minister Annelies Verlinden told the VTM Nieuws channel. According to the Belgian government official, there is a possibility that there are “branches” or accomplices in the attack.
Source: Observadora
