Belgium charges 3 over bid to join Syria extremists

Brussels / AFP

Belgium has charged three people with trying to go to Syria and join extremists there, press reports said on Sunday.
Police arrested four people on Saturday after raids in Jumet, near the southern city of Charleroi, on suspicion that they planned to go to either war-torn Syria or Libya.
The reports said one person had been released after questioning and that the three others, including a couple which had become radicalised recently, were charged. Of the couple, the man aged 23 and a convert to Islam had told police he wanted to travel to Syria to do humanitarian work, the reports said.
He was charged with participating in a terrorist organisation, they added.
Officials at the federal prosecutor’s office were not immediately available for comment.
Around 500 Belgians may have gone as foreign fighters to Syria, joining up with extremists, including from the IS group which claimed the November attacks on the French capital.

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