20-year-old Frenchman Bilal Hadfi, 31-year-old Brahim Abdeslam identified as second and third attackers in bloodbath
Authorities have named two more of the suicide bombers responsible for the Friday the 13th terrorist rampage across Paris that killed 129 people and wounded hundreds more.
A judicial source speaking on condition of anonymity because she wasn’t authorized to speak publicly said the 20-year-old Frenchman police identified as one of the three suicide bombers to strike at the Stade de France stadium was Bilal Hadfi.
A 31-year-old identified by police as the suicide bomber who detonated his explosive vest on Boulevard Voltaire in Paris was named as Brahim Abdeslam, the source said. Abdeslam is the older brother of 26-year-old Saleh Abdeslam, 26, who is currently the subject of an international manhunt.
A third suicide bomber, Ismael Mostefai, 29, had already been named by police, after being identified through remains found at the Bataclan music hall, another of the six separate attack sites across Paris and its suburbs.
Hours after the synchronized attacks that terrorized Paris, French police questioned and released 26-year-old Abdeslam, officials told The Associated Press on Sunday.
Abdeslam was one of three men in a getaway car, headed for France’s border with Belgium, when police pulled them over after daybreak Saturday. The French president had already announced new border controls to prevent the perpetrators from escaping. Hours had passed since investigators identified Abdeslam as the renter of a Volkswagen Polo that carried hostage-takers to the Paris theater where almost three-quarters of the 129 victims were killed.
It’s not clear why the local French police, known as gendarmes, didn’t take Abdeslam into custody. They checked his identification, but it’s not known whether they had been informed of his apparent connection to the attacks.
“It was a simple check. There was no lookout notice at the time of the traffic stop,” a French police official told the AP.
Asked whether Abdeslam’s name had been shared over police networks by then, the official simply said: “I have no explanation.”
As reported by The Times of Israel