PARIS — One of the suicide bombers who brought terror to a packed sports stadium in Paris on Friday entered Europe on a boat packed with migrants last month, Greek officials said.
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The attacker landed on the Greek island of Leros on Oct. 3 carrying a Syrian passport and gave his name as Ahmad Almohammad, Greek Immigration minister Ioannis Mouzalas told reporters Sunday.
Investigators attempting to shed more light on the attacks carried out raids across France and neighboring Belgium on Monday. ISIS claimed responsibility for the series of killings, which French President Francois Hollande described as an “act of war.” On Monday, French officials said Friday night’s atrocities were masterminded by Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a Belgian with known terror connections.
Mouzalas said one of the Stade de France suicide bombers arrived on a boat from Turkey with 198 others — ajourney undertaken by tens of thousands of refugees and migrants trying to cross borders into the European Union.
Fingerprints taken by Greek authorities match one of the three attackers who blew themselves up outside the stadium during an international soccer game Friday night, Mouzalas said. However, French justice minister Christiane Taubira told NBC News the passport was likely not genuine.
Serbia’s Interior Minister told NBC News that a terror suspect of interest to French authorities was registered and requested asylum at the Presevo border crossing from Macedonia on Oct. 7. The ministry would only give the suspect’s initials — A.A.
And A.A.’s details matched those of an individual registered in Greece four days earlier, the ministry added, saying that it was cooperating with French security services.
Another of the seven dead attackers was identified as Sami Amimour, 28, a French native known to anti-terror police, who was among the attackers at the Bataclan concert hall. Prosecutors in Paris said Amimour was charged with links to terrorism in October 2012 and placed under court order but an international arrest warrant was issued for him in 2013. Another accomplice at Bataclan was Omar Ismael Mostefai, who lived in Chartres, about 60 miles from Paris, at least until 2012, local lawmaker Jean-Pierre Gorge wrote on Facebook. The Associated Press reported that Mostefai had known ties to Islamic radicalism. This article first appeared on NBCNews.com.
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