[ad_1]
A Belgian couple and an apparent Iranian diplomat were arrested by President Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani, authorities in Brussels said Monday.
The Iranian-heritage couple, identified only as 38-year-old Amir S. and 33-year-old Nasimeh N., were apprehended on Saturday after police stopped them in the Woluwe-Saint-Pierre neighborhood of Brussels. Explorers found more than a pound of explosive TATP and a detonator, said Eric Van der Sijpt, spokesman for the Belgian Prosecutor's Office.
"We can say we are arrested just in time," Van der Sijpt told The Associated Press. TATP has been used in several terrorist attacks in Europe in recent years, including twin bombings in Brussels that killed 32 people in 2016.
Van der Sijpt one in Germany. The man arrested in Germany, the spokesman said, "seems to be" a diplomat attached to the Iranian embassy in Vienna, Austria. A report by Belgian broadcaster RTBF describes the man as a "contact" of the arrested couple.
Rudy Giuliani poses for a photo with Maryam Rajavi, the leader of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, at a rally in Villepinte, France Saturday.
(AP)
In a statement, Giuliani praised the "fine work" of law enforcement in France and Belgium and said the foiled attack "accentuates the growing sense that the regime is the biggest sponsor of terrorism in the world "
Police estimated that 25,000 people attended the rally held by the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) in Villepinte, a suburb of the French capital. However, multiple sources said the attendance was between 80,000 and 100,000.
The NCRI's leader, Maryam Rajavi, tweeted Monday that Iran's embassies must be shut down and the Tehran regime's diplomats expelled.
"EU officials must question the mullahs why their answer 2 innocent ppl … is 2 plant bombs & open fire? " Rajavi tweeted. "In the view of Iranians this regime is illegitimate & must go." She added the hashtag "#ExpelIranDiplomatTerrorists".
The Iranian government reacts angrily to the arrests, with Foreign Minister Javad Zarif tweeting: "How convenient: Just as we embark on a presidential visit to Europe, an alleged Iranian operation and its" plotters arrested, Iran unquivocally condemns all violence & terror anywhere, "
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani began a two-day visit to Switzerland on Monday and is
In addition to Giuliani, the American delegation at Saturday's rally included forming House Speaker Newt Gingrich, to form US Ambassador to the United Nations Bill Richardson, to form New Jersey Sen. Bob Toricelli, and FBI Director Director Louis Freeh.
"All I can say is that they are planning a terrorist attack at a conference, I do not know if they were targeting somebody special, "he said.
The main component of the NCRI is the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK), a European Union and US terrorist lists
Trump's recent appointment of John Bolton, who spoke to a MEK rally before he became a national security adviser, and Giuliani, a regular MEK headliner, are seen as moving the group's bid for US backing
In his statement, Giuliani also praised Rajavi as a "realistic alternative to this homicidal regime."
"Nothing could be worse for these misogynists than a movement seen in the way of a woman's head," Giuliani said .
The Associated Press Contributed to this report
Source link
