Article content continued

The man literally walked away from the airport attack, where two suicide bombers blew themselves up, killing 16. Authorities also detained four other men on Friday, including a man, Osama K, suspected of having contact with the suicide bomber who blew himself up in the Brussels subway, killing another 16.

Osama K. was also filmed by security cameras in the City 2 shopping mall when the bags were bought that were used by the suicide bombers who attacked Brussels Airport the same morning.

Belgian prosecutors said Abrini’s fingerprints and DNA were not only in a Renault Clio used in the Nov. 13 attacks that killed 130 in Paris, but also in an apartment in the Schaerbeek area of Brussels used by the Brussels bombers.

Friday’s detentions and the fact that they caught Abrini alive constituted a rare moment of light for the Belgian authorities after they were hounded for the past two weeks, accused of several blunders in their handling of the attacks.

Prime Minister Charles Michel had to refuse the offers of resignation of both the interior and justice ministers before Friday’s detentions provided a breakthrough in the investigation.

In a strange twist, French lawmakers investigating the Paris attacks went earlier in the day to Molenbeek, the home neighbourhood of many of the Islamic State extremists involved in what one analyst described as a terrorist “supercell.”

Friday was three weeks to the day that authorities also arrested in another Brussels neighbourhood Salah Abdeslam, also a key suspect in the Paris attacks who had been on the run for four months.