Belgium should control Brussels' Great Mosque, investigators told

The Great Mosque in Brussels should be brought back under Belgian control and become more representative of the country's broad Muslim community, one of the experts on the parliamentary investigative committee into last year's Brussels terror attacks has recommended.

L'Avenir newspaper reports that not all committee members agree with the idea, which would put the Muslim Executive of Belgium in charge. The mosque is currently connected to the Saudi Arabia-based Muslim World League and the newspaper notes that any change to this 1967 agreement "could prove diplomatically delicate" between the two countries.

The investigative committee is meeting behind closed doors to discuss the wording of its report on tackling radicalisation in Belgium, based on a series of public hearings this year which included testimony from the mosque's imam and from the director of the Islamic and Cultural Centre. Both men told the committee that the institution practised a moderate form of Islam.

A note issued by Belgium's State Security Services in 2015 accused the mosque of preachings that "could lead to a high degree of potentially violent radicalisation". However the note did not establish a link between the mosque and terrorism or foreign combat.