MOSCOW (Sputnik) – One of the terrorists dropped a case with the bomb from the luggage cart, as a result, the explosion was weaker than initially planned, the newspaper said on Wednesday citing interviews with people briefed on the investigation and a Belgian parliamentary inquiry that started this week. Another terrorist left a bag with explosives behind without detonating it.
According to The Wall Street Journal, effective police work also contributed to limiting the scope of the Brussels attacks damages.
On Wednesday, it was revealed that the head of Brussels railway police, Jo Decuyper, was sent an email on his personal account telling him to shut the underground down minutes before the March explosion at Maalbeek metro station.
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.
On March 22, two suicide blasts ripped through the departure hall of the airport in the northeastern municipality of Zaventem while another explosion hit the Maelbeek metro station near the headquarters of the EU institutions in Brussels, killing over 35 people, including three terrorists, and injuring at least 300.
The Daesh jihadist group claimed responsibility for the attack.
