A Brussels police officer has been arrested after authorities caught him handing over information to a terror cell who were under criminal investigation.
Officer Momo E.S., who comes from a North African background, had been under investigation by authorities for weeks before his arrest. Police say that he used the social messaging service WhatsApp to give the terror cell details on what was going on with the police investigation into their group’s activities De Tijd reports.
The committee investigating Mr E.S. say that they are currently working on finding out just how many messages he sent to the terror cell and what specific information has passed on to them.
It is said that he would have had access to information indicating when potential raids on suspects would have occurred and may have passed on the information to allow the suspects to evade capture.
The officer will be charged for violation of professional secrecy and corruption but so far prosecutors have not brought up any terrorism-related charges.
The case is not the first time Islamist sympathisers have been caught working for state authorities in European countries and using their position to help fellow Islamists.
In Germany last year an officer in the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) was placed under arrest after other agents caught him trying to recruit Islamists and had plotted to bomb the national headquarters of the agency in Cologne.
The man had initially been hired earlier in the year to observe the rapidly growing radical Islamist scene but later said he had joined the agency in order to infiltrate it.
At least 50 Islamic State Supporters Still Working at Brussels Airport, Say Police https://t.co/3l45tr1LRN pic.twitter.com/Ayu5GRaV1S
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) April 1, 2016
Security services are not the only places to have been infiltrated by jihadists and their sympathisers. Shortly after the Brussels airport terror attack last year it was reported that as many as 50 Islamic State supporters worked at the airport as baggage handlers, cleaners and cafeteria staff.
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