Salah Abdeslam, a fugitive suspected of the deadly attacks in Paris, was at the main Budapest railway station before mid-September and left with men who had been travelling amid a wave of refugees trying to enter Europe, Hungarian officials said on Thursday.

In Belgium, two more suspects in the Paris attacks were taken into custody facing terrorism charges. In all, Belgium now has eight suspects behind bars who are linked to the Paris attacks or to a possible attack in Brussels.

János Lázár, the chief of staff to the nationalist Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, said at a news conference on Thursday the Hungarian secret services had confirmed information about Abdeslam’s travels they had received from foreign agencies.

He said the secret services did not have this information at the time of the 13 November Paris attacks nor as Budapest railway station became a hotspot last summer during Europe’s migration crisis.

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While Lázár did not mention Abdeslam by name, his identity was confirmed to the Associated Press by a government spokesman who spoke on condition of anonymity. According to Lázár, the Paris fugitive was at Budapest Keleti rail terminus, where he made contact with men who were refusing to register with Hungarian authorities, and later left the country with them. He said he was confirming press reports that Abdeslam left with two men. Lázár did not give a specific date when Abdeslam was seen.

Thousands of refugees congregated at Keleti over the summer, seeking to board trains bound for Austria and Germany. The situation escalated after 1 September, when Hungarian authorities temporarily shut down the station as the flow of people grew difficult to control.

Orbán became known throughout Europe for his inflammatory rhetoric on refugees, whom he described as “looking like an army”. He claimed Europe was in the grip of madness over immigration and refugees, and said he was defending European Christianity against a Muslim influx.

In Belgium on Thursday, the federal prosecutor’s office said a French citizen had been detained at Brussels national airport on Sunday as he was seeking to fly to Morocco. The man had already tried twice to travel to Syria this year.

The suspect is said to be part of the entourage of Bilal Hadfi, one of the suicide bombers at the French national stadium on 13 November. Belgian prosecutors also said a second man had been arrested during a raid hours after Sunday’s airport detention. Both men were charged with participating in the activities of a terrorist organisation and hail from Molenbeek, a Brussels neighbourhood linked to at least three other attackers in Paris.

The attacks in Paris, claimed by Islamic State, left 130 people dead and hundreds wounded.