Tel-Chai Nation: Brussels murderer planned atrocity on Bastille Day

France 24 says the jihadist who committed murder at a Jewish museum in Belgium had more plans in store too:

Nemmouche made more headlines recently following reports that two former hostages, Nicolas Hénin and Didier François, had identified Nemmouche as one of their captors when they were being held by jihadists in Syria.

The pair were among four French journalists, along with Pierre Torrès and Edouard Elias, who were taken hostage by Islamic State militants in June 2013. They were released on April 20 this year.

Libération, allegedly citing evidence the former hostages gave to police, said Monday that Nemmouche, 29, had revealed while in Syria that he was planning a terrorist attack in France.

However, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve went on record at midday to say the story was “untrue”. The Paris prosecutor issued a statement on Monday saying that no information on a planned Paris attack had yet featured in the charges against Nemmouche.

But Libération stuck resolutely to its claims, insisting that the freed hostages, in an April 20 briefing with the French intelligence services, warned that their former captor – then unnamed – had threatened to attack Paris on Bastille Day on July 14.

The chances jihadists could pull something so sadistic is very real, and Cazeneuve's making a horrible error by denying the reports. And as this UK Telegraph item tells, it gets worse:

A freed French hostage held with David Haines has said one of his kidnappers took a perverse pleasure in torturing Syrian prisoners, and had boasted of how he had raped and killed a young mother before beheading her baby.

[...] Mr Hénin described hearing beatings going on all night until the dawn prayer. He said he had been beaten by Mr Nemmouche, adding: “I don’t know if he [Nemmouche] tortured other western prisoners.”

However, Mr Hénin's account matches reports of beatings inflicted on other hostages including James Foley and Steven Sotloff, the two American journalists who have been beheaded in the past month.

Mr Haines, 44, who was captured in March 2013, is also said to have been tortured in the early months of his captivity and left needing medical attention.

Mr Hénin described Mr Nemmouche as a publicity-loving sadist who “is awaiting trial with delight”. The magazine reporter said he was known as “Abu Omar the hitter” and had told him how he had enjoyed raping a woman before slitting her throat and killing her baby. “It’s such a pleasure to cut off a baby’s head,” Mr Hénin quoted him as saying.

Mr Hénin added that Mr Nemmouche had gone to Syria “not to construct an ideal but out of a lack of recognition, to fulfil himself.”