NEW YORK – One of the bombers who blew himself up in Brussels this week was also the bomb maker who assembled the suicide vests for two of the terrorists who carried out the Paris attacks.

Belgian officials on Friday (March 25) identified Najim Laachraoui, 24, as one of two suicide bombers who attacked Brussels Airport on Tuesday.

They also said he had been involved with making at least two of the bombs used in November to attack the Bataclan concert hall in Paris and the Stade de France in St-Denis, north of Paris.

Here is what is known about Laachraoui from public records, official statements and an interview with one of his siblings:

RAISED IN BRUSSELS, HE WENT TO SYRIA

Laachraoui was born May 18, 1991, in Morocco and grew up in Brussels, the eldest of five.

One of his three brothers, Mr Mourad Laachraoui, 20, a taekwondo champion, and his lawyer tried to distance the family from Laachraoui’s actions on Thursday.

“Mourad and his family are crushed to learn that Najim is the author of such barbaric acts,” his lawyer, Mr Philippe Culot, said at a news conference.

Members of the family notified the police that Laachraoui had left for Syria in 2013 and that they had lost track of him afterward, Mr Culot said. “If you had asked his family about Najim, they would have said that, for them, Najim has been dead for three years,” Mr Culot said.

Asked how his parents felt when they learned that their oldest child had gone to Syria, Mr Mourad Laachraoui replied: “How would you feel?”

He added that he had no way of contacting his brother. “If I had found him, I would have tried to get him back, to reason with him,” he said.

According to news reports, Laachraoui attended a private Catholic school in the Brussels neighbourhood of Schaerbeek when he was 12 to 18. He studied engineering at the Universit Libre de Bruxelles in 2009-10, but did not complete a degree. He went on to the Universit Catholique de Louvain, where he studied electromechanics in 2010-11.

TIES TO TERRORISTS

Laachraoui did not have a long criminal history. His name was first raised as a suspect in February in a case in Belgium involving a possible jihadi network led by Khalid Zerkani, who was convicted last year for his role in recruiting young men – including Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the architect of the Paris attacks – to fight in Syria.

Prosecutors had requested that Laachraoui be convicted in absentia and sentenced to 15 years; a ruling was expected in May.

It was not until this week that his identity was widely known by the public. But in September, he was stopped at a police checkpoint between Hungary and Austria travelling under the alias Soufiane Kayal. Driving the rented Mercedes-Benz he was riding in was Salah Abdeslam, who would go on to help carry out the Paris terrorist attacks. (Abdeslam was arrested four days before the Brussels attacks.) In the car with them was Mohamed Belkaid, an Algerian who was killed on March 15 in a police raid of an apartment in the Forest section of Brussels.

SUSPECTED IN THE PARIS ATTACKS

Under his alias, Laachraoui rented a house in October in Auvelais, Belgium, that the Paris attackers used.

After the Paris attacks, investigators focused on his suspected role. On Dec 10, they searched an apartment on Rue Henri Berg, where they found traces of the explosive material TATP and the fingerprints of Abdeslam and another Paris attacker, Bilal Hadfi. According to members of Laachraoui’s family, the police also searched their home.

ROLE IN BRUSSELS ATTACKS

On Monday, three days after Abdeslam was captured in Maelbeek, the Brussels neighbourhood where he grew up, the authorities asked for help finding Laachraoui. The next morning, at 7.58am, he blew himself up at Brussels Airport, along with another suicide bomber, Ibrahim el-Bakraoui

The Belgian authorities confirmed on Friday that Laachraoui was dead, explaining that his DNA had been found on an explosive vest and a piece of cloth found at the Bataclan concert hall, where 90 people died, and on an explosive device at the Stade de France, where two attackers blew themselves up Nov 13. NEW YORK TIMES