Two brothers involved in the Brussels suicide bombings murdered an elderly man earlier to see what killing was like, according to a Belgian report. Ibrahim El-Bakraoui blew himself up at Zaventem airport in 2016, murdering 11 people. His brother Khalid left another 20 dead at a metro station. The pair told fellow attackers they had shot dead Paul-André Vanderperren, 76, on the street at random, De Morgen newspaper reports.

Vanderperren was murdered in 2014. He was shot while returning home from a cafe in the Jette area of Brussels after watching his football club Anderlecht on TV on a Sunday night. His murder has never been solved. Brussels prosecutors appealed for witnesses in May 2018 to try to determine who killed him but they have told the BBC they closed the case in October 2020. Vanderperren’s widow told De Morgen she was told last year via her lawyers that the Bakraoui brothers had almost certainly been linked to the crime. “I’m still left with plenty of questions but in a way it’s a relief,” she is reported as saying.(BBC)…[+]