MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The head of Brussels railway police, Jo Decuyper, was sent an email on his personal account telling him to shut the underground down four minutes before the March explosion at Maalbeek metro station, local media reported on Wednesday.
Decuyper told the parliamentary commission investigating the March bombings that even if he reacted on the email immediately it would not have made any difference.
“If I had had a button to put everything down and to evacuate — which evidently does not exist — then it would have happened anyway,” he said as reported by Belgian newspaper De Standaard.
It takes approximately 30 minutes to shut down the metro system, he added.
Maalbeek metro station was targeted in a terrorist attack on March 22 when 16 people were killed.