Khalid El Bakraoui, the suicide
bomber who blew himself up at Brussels Maelbeek station during
last week's terrorist attacks, reportedly spent time in Italy
and used the identity of a former Inter Milan player.
El Bakraoui used the name of former Inter midfielder
Ibrahim Maaroufi, a Belgian-Moroccan, to rent the apartment Rue
de Fort, in Charleroi, that would be the command hideout for
last November's terror attacks in Paris, according to Belgian
prosecutors' documents.
On December 9 Belgian police searched that apartment and
found the fingerprints of Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the so-called
mastermind of the Paris attacks, and of Bilal Hadfi, an attacker
who blew himself up at outside the Stade de France.
Sky television said that El Bakraoui was in Italy late July
2015 while on his way to Athens.
Maaroufi, 27, made six competitive appearances for Inter
during a stint between 2006 and 2009, most of which he spent
with the club's youth academy.
In December the product of PSV's academy joined FC
Schaerbeek, a team from the Brussels area where El Bakraoui and
his brother Ibrahim, who blew himself up at the city's airport,
lived.
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