Foiled attack targeting Bank of America in Paris: Belgian released

A Belgian woman, previously detained for her alleged involvement in the planned attack foiled at the end of March against the Paris headquarters of Bank of America, was released under judicial supervision this week, a source close to the matter said on Saturday. She is one of the two Belgians targeted by a European arrest warrant in this case and handed over this summer to French justice to be indicted in Paris and imprisoned.

“My client, 24 years old, with no criminal record, has said since her first hearing that she knew nothing about this project, and there is no element linking her to a violent ideology,” her lawyer Mr. Werner-Édouard de Saeger van Nattenhaesdonck, at the Paris and Liège bars, told AFP. This planned attack, foiled by police intervention, “appears to be able to be linked” to the small pro-Iranian group “Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya” (Hayi), “without this element having been able to be formally established at this stage”, indicated the French National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor's Office (Pnat) in April. The small group claimed responsibility for several attacks against the Jewish community in March in Belgium, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.

In the Bank of America file, it involved placing a homemade explosive device in front of the establishment, asking teenagers recruited for the operation to film, for remuneration of “500 to 1,000 euros”, according to the Pnat. Three teenagers are suspected of having made a first attempt on the night of March 26 to 27, but of having been prevented from doing so by a “screen-printed” police vehicle in front of the establishment, according to the anti-terrorism prosecution.

Two are accused of doing it again the following night, before being interrupted by police. The device could have generated “a strong fireball several meters in diameter and spread a fire”, according to the Pnat. Earlier this fall, one of the minors in pre-trial detention was released on an electronic bracelet.