Belgium charges airport suspect, calls off Brussels 'march against fear'

The suicide bomb attacks targeting Brussels airport and a rush-hour metro train on March 22 killed 31 people, including three of the attackers, and injured hundreds more. Islamic State has claimed responsibility.

Amid increasing signs that the attacks were carried out by the same militant network that was behind bombings and shootings in Paris last November that killed 130 people, German lawmakers said Europe urgently needed to improve the way its security agencies share information.

Of the three men charged on March 26, Belgian prosecutors named one as Faycal C. Belgian media identified him as Faycal Cheffou and said he was the man wearing a hat and a light-colored jacket in last March 22's airport CCTV footage that showed three men pushing baggage trolleys bearing luggage.

Cheffou was charged with taking part in the activities of a terrorist group, and actual and attempted terrorist murder.

The other two charged on March 26, Aboubakar A. and Rabah N., were accused of terrorist activities and membership of a terrorist group.

Rabah N. was wanted in connection with a related raid in France this week that authorities say foiled an apparent attack plot.

Brussels mayor Yvan Mayeur told Le Soir newspaper that Cheffou, who said he was a freelance journalist, was "dangerous" and that he had been detained a number of times at a park where he sought to encourage asylum seekers camped there to turn to radical extremism.

The authorities also said that a man arrested on March 25 after being shot in the leg at a tram stop in the Brussels district of Schaerbeek was being held for a further 24 hours.

He was identified as Abderamane A. and was one of three people arrested on March 25.

That operation was linked to the arrest in Paris on March 24 of an Islamist convicted in Belgium last year and suspected of plotting a new attack, Belgian prosecutors said.