Brain dead victim in Brussels museum shooting dies

Marcy Oster

(JTA) — A victim of last month’s shooting at the Jewish Museum in Brussels has died after remaining brain dead since the attack.

Alexandre Strens, a receptionist at the Museum, died on Friday.

An Israeli couple and a French woman who was a museum employee also died in the May 24 attack.

French police on May 30 arrested Mehdi Nemmouche, a 29-year-old French national, whom Belgian and French authorities believe killed the four victims of the Jewish Museum of Belgium shooting in central Brussels, though he denies the allegations.

Nemmouche had been stopped by customs officers performing routine checks and declined to open his bag, leading the customs officers to evacuate the bus and check the contents of every bag aboard. The weapons found in his luggage “were arms of the same type used on May 24 in Brussels,” an unnamed source told the French news agency AFP.

French police said Nemmouche fought in Syria with jihadists in 2013.

The museum reopened to the public last week for the first time since the attack, under heavy police surveillance.