Lionel Gougelot, edited by Loane Nader // photo credit: Kenzo TRIBOUILLARD / AFP
The day after the terrorist attack in Brussels against two Swedish supporters, the journey of the perpetrator divides local residents between anger and incomprehension. Abdessalem Lassoued, arrived in Lampedusa in 2011, according to information from Europe 1, and was then monitored by Italian intelligence for radicalization.
The attack in Brussels on Tuesday puts the subject of expulsions of people in an irregular situation back at the center of public debate in Belgium. In front of the café where the terrorist Abdessalem Lassoued was shot dead Tuesday morning, Ibrahim, a resident of the neighborhood, appears fatalistic. He was not surprised to learn that the assassin was in an irregular situation in Belgium, thus escaping any control from the authorities. “A person in an irregular situation dodges all control, dodges everything that happens. Someone we don’t know at the administrative level is a ghost. And how do you expect us to anticipate thoughts of a ghost or the acts he could do?” laments Ibrahim.
“We need to be more vigilant about suspects”
Without an official address, Abdessalem Lassoued had literally disappeared from the radar and had not been expelled, as was first ordered in Belgium. Nicole and Jean-Charles, two other Brussels residents, do not understand this failure of the administration. “It’s serious… Well, I don’t understand, there must be a concern about justice. We need to be more vigilant about the suspects,” says Nicole. For Jean-Charles, “It’s like in France. There are so many of them that it’s very difficult to expel them. But it’s true that it’s a mistake… I find it incredible.”
These residents thus approve of the Prime Minister’s desire to make eviction orders more restrictive, friends without great illusions about the concrete results.