Brother of Brussels suicide bomber to compete at Rio Olympics

 Najim Laachraoui, 24, was one of two suicide bombers who blew himself up at Brussels Airport on March 22,  including another suicide bomber on the city’s metro, killing 32 people.


Mourad, 21, is Najim's younger brother and has won gold at the European Taekwondo Championships and is now set to compete for Belgium at the Olympic Games in Brazil.

Mourad is listed among Belgium’s 185-strong squad bound for the games in Rio De Janeiro starting on Aug. 5, where he will compete in the Under-58 kilogram category.


In a news conference two days after the attacks, Mourad said his brother was a nice, intelligent boy and had given no signs of being radicalized before he left for Syria in 2013 and broke all contact with his family.

”It’s crazy, really—the same parents, the same upbringing, and one turns out really well and the other really bad,” his lawyer Philippe Culot said in March. ”You don’t choose your family,” Mourad remarked.