PARIS (Reuters) – A French journalist held hostage for months in Syria said yesterday that one of his captors was a Frenchman suspected of killing four people at the Jewish Museum in Brussels in May.
The reporter, Nicolas Henin, said he recognised Mehdi Nemmouche from video shown to him as part of an investigation. He did not elaborate on the nature of the probe, but mentioned that “a judicial procedure” had been launched while he was still a hostage.
“After the arrest of Mehdi Nemmouche I have been shown a few audovisual documents that allowed me to recognise him formally,” Henin, who was freed on April 20 along with three other French journalists, told a news conference.
He said Nemmouche beat him.
“After beating me up, he would show me his gloves. He was very proud of his motorcycle gloves. He told me he had bought them especially for me,” he said.
“I do not know if other Western hostages were mistreated but I could hear him torture Syrian prisoners.”
Nemmouche, 29, is in custody in Belgium over the May 24 shooting attack after being arrested in Marseille on May 30 and extradited in July. He is to appear before a Belgian court on Sept. 12.
Henin spoke at the Paris offices of French weekly Le Point, which early yesterday had published excerpts of a piece written by Henin in which he described Nemmouche as one of a group of French nationals who had moved in Islamic State circles in Syria.