A man convicted of terrorism in Belgium has been detained as he entered Bulgaria through its southeastern border with Turkey, prosecutors announced Thursday.
Border police and state security agents intercepted the man on Wednesday in a special operation, the prosecution said in a statement.
He is “sought in relation to a 20-year jail sentence for terrorism handed to him by a court in an EU country” and a terrorism sentence of nine years and five months in Turkey, it added.
Prosecutors when contacted by AFP declined to give further details.
But Bulgarian media named the man as Yassine Lachiri, reportedly close to Abdelhamid Abaaoud, believed to have been one of the 2015 Paris attack planners.
A source close to the investigation also confirmed to AFP that it was Lachiri.
A spokesperson for Belgium’s federal prosecutors’ office told AFP that they were seeking the detainee’s extradition.
A Brussels court sentenced Lachiri to 20 years in prison in absentia in 2015 as part of a larger trial of those involved in a jihadist recruitment network in Belgium.
Belgian press reports say that Lachiri, who is reportedly of Moroccan descent, was stripped of his Belgian nationality in absentia in 2020.
https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/belgium-terrorism-convict-arrested-in-bulgaria.914364