Brussels Attacker Suspect

The vexing question of who is the “man in the hat” was answered Saturday when Mohamed Abrini admitted to being the elusive third attacker at the Brussels airport, officials said.

Abrini, who was held on terrorism charges, was confronted by damning footage prepared by investigators.

“He had no other choice,” a spokesman for Belgium’s public prosecutors said, Reuters reported.

The Belgian petty criminal had been on Europe’s most wanted after he was seen in security video at a service station with Salah Abdeslam while they drove to Paris two days before the Nov. 13 attacks there.

Police have been on the hunt for the mysterious man seen on video — wearing a hat and light jacket — as he strode through the Brussels airport on March 22 along with suicide bombers Ibrahim el-Bakraoui and Najim Laachraoui.

Prosecutors on Saturday charged four people, including Abrini, with terrorist activity for their alleged roles in the attacks in Brussels and Paris. Two other people were released.

One of the suspects is Osama K, identified by local media as a Swede named Osama Krayem, who was present at the time of the attack on the Brussels metro station, according to reports.

Krayem, 23, was caught on video buying bags used to conceal the bombs set off by the two airport bombers, officials said.

The other two were Bilal El Makhoukhi, 27, who had already been convicted for working with terroor recruiters, and a Rwandan named Herve B.M., 25, on charges of helping Abrini and Krayem.

El Makhoukhi was convicted in January 2015 for being involved in Sharia4Belgium, a group that recruited people to go fight alongside jihadists in Syria and Iraq, Belgium’s Justice Minister Koen Geens said.

Belgian police also raided a suspected safe house in central Brussels on Saturday but found no weapons or explosives.

Abrini was arrested Friday in the Brussels neighborhood of Anderlecht.

“He is charged with participation in the activities of a terrorist group and terrorist murders,” the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

“He confessed his presence at the crime scene. He explained having thrown away his vest (jacket) in a garbage bin and having sold his hat afterward,” the statement said, AFP reported.

Ibrahim el-Bakraoui’s brother Khalid blew himself up at the Maalbeek metro station.

Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel said his government would continue to be vigilant about the militant threat.

“We are positive about the recent developments in the investigation. But we know we have to stay alert and cautious,” Michel told a news conference in Brussels.