Two men have been detained in Paris for suspected involvement in the terror attack in Brussels last week, AFP reports.
The men are alleged by French prosecutors to have participated in a "criminal terrorist conspiracy" together with Abdeslam Lassoued, the 45-year-old Tunisian national and ISIS-sympathiser who shot and killed two Swedish citizens on Monday 16 October.
French prosecutors added that they are "continuing to clarify [the suspects'] ties" to Lassoued. Like Lassoued, both men are reported to be middle-aged Tunisian nationals.
Two other men suspected of involvement in the attack were also detained by the French authorities last week but were subsequently released.
'Nothing to do with the attack'
One of the two men's lawyers, Souleymen Rakrouki, told AFP that his client had "nothing to do directly or remotely with the attack."
"He has been living in France for almost 20 years," he said. Rakrouki added that, although his client knew Lassoued, he was completely unaware of his political extremism.
"[Lassoued] is a friend he has known for a long time, for whom he had not seen signs of radicalisation. He could never have imagined [him committing] such an act."
Lassoued was killed by Belgian police on Tuesday morning after he was tracked down to a café not far from his home in Schaerbeek.
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The attack has profoundly shaken Belgian politics and broader society. On Friday, Justice Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne resigned after it was revealed that Lassoued had not been deported from Belgium despite having had his asylum application rejected in 2020.
Subsequent reporting revealed that Lassoued had served a prison sentence in Sweden between 2012 and 2014, and that he had been flagged by Italian police in 2016 as a potentially "radicalised subject". He is believed to have moved to Belgium shortly thereafter.
Monday's attack is not the first time that Belgium has been the victim of ISIS-related terrorism. In March 2016, Brussels Airport and Maelbeek metro station were hit by suicide bombings which killed 32 people.
In a much-publicised recent trial, eight men were convicted for their involvement in the attacks or for their links to terrorist groups.
