The Olympic taekwondo fighter brother of one of the jihadis who blew himself up in a suicide bombing at Brussels airport is preparing to represent the nation his sibling despised. Mourad Laachraoui, who is the European champion in the 54kg division, will fly to Rio next month to represent Belgium at the Games.
He will have to travel from the airport where his suicide bomber brother Najim detonated explosives, killing 17 people next to the check in desks.
And in an extensive interview with Germany’s Spiegel magazine, Mourad has revealed his sorrow at the death of his brother but the pride he has in representing his nation.
He explained: ‘We had an extremely difficult time in the past weeks — my parents, my two small brothers and me.
‘In the past, when something bad happened in my life, I was always able to quickly suppress and forget about it. But this here is different. It was unimaginable to me that my brother could do something like this.
‘We were advised to change our last name. But that’s no solution either. It is my name, the name of my father.’
When he travels abroad, Mourad has to pass through the airport where his brother died, taking so many innocents with him.
He says a ‘strange feeling’ creeps over him there and he tries to scurry through as swiftly as possible.
Of the attack itself he said: ‘I have thought a lot about it, but not much has come of it. I don’t know what happened and I probably never will. Yes, I have grieved for him and I still haven’t overcome the sadness.
‘It’s terrible what he did, but I am mostly angry at the people who led him to do it. I miss him as a brother. But I do not miss him for what he did.’
Mourad and Najim grew up together in the Brussels’ Schaerbeek neighborhood, home to a large number of immigrants. Their father, who came from Morocco, watched films with Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan.
He didn’t want his sons hanging about on the streets so he sent them to taekwondo.
‘The sport was my upbringing,’ says Mourad. ‘You always had to be on time, you had to respect the rules and that became part of my life.’
Mourad began competing at the age of 14 but Najim, who was already 18 by then, had stopped attending training sessions as he plunged deeper into fundamental Islam.
He stopped shaking hands with women, grew a beard, avoided alcohol and became radicalized.
‘He read books about contemporary politics,’ says Mourad, ‘but also books by Victor Hugo.
Mourad told the magazine: ‘We were afraid for him.’
In 2015, Najim returned to Belgium with under ISIS orders to kill as many people as possible.
He rented a house in Auvelais – HQ for the cell which would carry out the assault in Brussels.
The apartment in Brussels where he built his bomb for detonation at the apartment was less than a quarter of a mile from the college where his brother studies.
Mourad says he last saw his brother in 2013. ‘I didn’t know that. We didn’t know anything at all until the attack,’ he says.
‘Even if you run into each other, you can’t always know what the other is currently up to.’
The young athlete also said he felt ‘scared and saddened’ by the attacks.
