Three arrested in the Netherlands after DNA links them to Paris IS safe house

Dutch police have arrested three people after traces of their dna were found on guns in an IS hideout in France with links to the 2016 Brussels terror attacks.

The three, aged 26, 30 and 54 were picked up following raids in Groningen, Rotterdam, and a hotel room in Schinnen as well as a jail cell in Zaanstad where one of the three was being held.

A fourth suspect, a man from Sassenheim is already in jail for violent crime and will be questioned by police, the public prosecution department said on Tuesday.

The arrests are connected to the discovery of an IS safe house in a suburb of Paris, two days after the 2016 attacks in Brussels.

Explosives

The apartment contained five automatic rifles, guns, 30 kilos of explosives, detonators, false passports, mobile phones and jihadist literature. The tenant, named at the time as Réda Kriket, was arrested.

Shortly afterwards, a second French suspect, Anis Bahri, was arrested in Rotterdam in a flat were more explosives were found. Those arrests led police to investigate whether or not the weapons and explosives came from the Netherlands.

DNA

DNA from the suspects arrested in the Netherlands was found inside several guns and a sports bag in the Paris apartment, the public prosecution department said.

According to the NRC, the four Dutch suspects may have provided the arms to the French jihadi cell. The arrests are further evidence of the role the Netherlands plays in international gun running, the paper said.

The suspects will appear in court later this week for a remand hearing.