Suspected Bomber ID’d in Bulgaria Airport Attack That Killed Israeli Tourists
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
Bulgaria has identified a dual Lebanese-French citizen as the alleged culprit in the suicide bombing of a bus containing Israeli tourists two years ago.
The Bulgarian prosecutor’s office and the national security agency said Friday in a joint statement Friday that the alleged bomber was 23-year-old Mohamad Hassan El-Husseini, who was born in Lebanon, the Associated Press reported.
“The offender, who was using a fake driver’s license in the name of Jacque Felipe Martin, was indeed Mohamad Hassan El Husseini,” the Bulgarian State Agency for National Security and the country’s Prosecutor’s Office said in a joint press release.
Husseini had two suspected accomplices in the attack, also of Lebanese origin, who remain at large. Bulgarian prosecutors have named the two suspects as Meliad Farah, 32, an Australian citizen, and Hassan El Hajj Hassan, 25, a Canadian citizen.
“Identity was categorically established after performing the DNA expertise and numerous other investigative procedures,” it said.
Investigators also discovered that Husseini’s friends and relatives have published on social networks eulogies of his death as a “martyr,” the press release said.
“The investigation continues,” the press release added.
The July 2012 explosion outside an airport on Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast killed five Israeli tourists, the Bulgarian bus driver and the bomber. Thirty-five people were wounded.
Last year Bulgaria accused the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah of mounting the attack.
Following the attack, the European Union designated Hezbollah’s military wing as a terrorist group.
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