Brussels bomber used Inter player ID

(ANSA) - Rome, March 28 - 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.