Brussels airport will not open before Tuesday
28 March 2016 3:56 AM IST
Brussels international airport will not reopen before Tuesday, authorities say, following attacks in the Belgian capital that left 31 dead.
Zaventem airport was the first target on 22 March, with two suicide bomb explosions in the departures hall.
An hour later, 20 people died in the suicide bombing of a metro station.
Belgian prosecutors on Saturday announced that one arrested man, named as Faycal C, had now been charged with terrorist offences.
He had been detained outside the prosecutor's office in Brussels on Thursday. A search of his home had found no weapons, a statement said.
So-called Islamic State (IS) has said it carried out both the Brussels attacks, and the ones in Paris, in which 130 people died.
US President Barack Obama on Saturday said that Muslims must not be stigmatised following the attacks, as this would play "right into the hands of terrorists". Security measures Brussels airport authorities said the "investigative work related to the judicial inquiry into the airport terminal has been completed" but that passenger activity could not resume before Tuesday.
A team of airport engineers and technicians is being given access to the terminal building for the first time since the attack.
They will assess the damage and stability of the building. The airport authorities will also install new security measures. The airport check-in area suffered severe damage when two blasts seconds apart hit opposite ends of the departures hall.
Some people fleeing the first blast were caught by the second.
The two suicide bombers there have been identified by DNA as Najim Laachraoui and Brahim el-Bakraoui. They were pictured in an airport CCTV image before the explosions with a third man, on the right of the picture, who has yet to be officially identified.
Brahim’s brother, Khalid el-Bakraoui, carried out the attack on the Maelbeek metro attack.
Buses there are running and most metro stations have reopened but there are still soldiers patrolling the streets and although people are defiant, they are aware that there are possibly still other suspects at large. Police in Belgium on Saturday continued operations to search for members of the terror cell. But prosecutors denied the murder of a security official at the Fleurus nuclear research centre was a terrorist act.
Brussels attacks: Paris attack suspect Abdeslam goes silent
Paris attack suspect Salah Abdeslam refused to speak when asked about Tuesday’s attacks in Brussels, Belgian prosecutors say. They said that Abdeslam, arrested last week in Brussels and initially cooperative, had “exercised his right to silence” and said nothing when interviewed after Tuesday’s bombings.
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