Greece names owner of passport found near Paris suicide bomber

Sunday, November 15, 2015 8:45 pm

Ahmad alMohammad: was he the Paris bomber? Published by Blic

Ahmad alMohammad’s passport shown on the screen by a Greek Interior ministry official today

A Syrian passport found by police at the scene of one of the Paris attacks was issued to Ahmad alMohammad, an asylum seeker who had taken the migrants’ route through the Balkans, Greece’s migration minister said on Sunday.

Yiannis Mouzalas, junior interior minister for migration, said the 25-year-old was registered on the island of Leros on October 3, left the country on an unknown date and was last recorded in Croatia later that month.

“This is the sole person on which we have received a request from the French police,” he told a news conference.

Ahmad alMohammad faces. Credit: telegraph London

French judicial sources said the name was not known to French anti-terror services.

The Serbian daily Blic had earlier published a photograph which it said showed a “Syrian passport issued in the name of Ahmad alMohammad… (who) travelled the entire Balkans migrant route”.

In an official statement the Serbian interior ministry said the Syrian passport was recently registered at the Presevo border crossing (between Macedonia and Serbia), where alMohammad formally sought asylum.

“It has been established that his data matches the data of a person who on October 3 was identified in Greece. There was no Interpol arrest warrant issued for this person,” the ministry said.

The Croatian authorities confirmed that alMohammad had also travelled through their country.

“We did not label the person as potentially suspicious,” police spokeswoman Helena Biocic told reporters.

French police said the passport was found “near the body of one of the attackers” during the investigation into Friday’s deadly assault on Paris.

A French source confirmed to AFP that the passport found near the Stade de France bore the name Ahmad alMohammad, born on September 10, 1990.

However the same source urged for caution before any conclusion was drawn, saying it had not been established that the person identified in the passport was one of three suicide bombers who blew themselves up near the Stade de France.

The discovery of a Syrian passport near the body of one of the suicide bombers has raised fears that some of the assailants might have entered Europe as part of the huge influx of people fleeing Syria’s civil war.