Bulgarian authorities have identified two suspects – including a man holding Canadian citizenship -- wanted in connection with a deadly bomb attack that killed five Israeli tourists and a Bulgarian bus driver last summer.
Photos of suspects Hassan El Hajj Hassan, 25, and Meliad Farah, 32, were released by officials Thursday in a bid to help apprehend them. A third suspect involved in the bombing died in the attack and was not identified.
According to a statement released by Bulgaria’s interior ministry on Thursday, Hassan is a Canadian citizen and Farah – who is also known as Hussein Hussein – is a citizen of Australia.
In February, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird confirmed that one of the suspects was a Canadian dual national, holding both a Canadian citizenship and a Lebanese citizenship.
The ministry is asking anyone who might have seen the suspects to contact police.
CTV’s Ottawa Bureau Chief Robert Fife reports that Hassan came to Canada when he was eight-years-old and lived in Vancouver.
Following his parent’s divorce, Hassan relocated to Beirut, Lebanon, and spent time moving back and forth between the two countries, Fife told CTV News Channel.
“He had not lived in Canada basically since the age of 12,” Fife added.
Hassan apparently entered Bulgaria using a Canadian passport, but then used a driver’s licence from Michigan under the alias “Ralph William Rico.”
Fife said Bulgarian security officials released the photos of the suspects – who have been accused of having links to Hezbollah -- in the hopes of tracking them down.
On July 18, 2012, a bus carrying Israeli tourists exploded at the airport in Burgas, killing five Israeli tourists, the Bulgarian bus driver, and the perpetrator of the attack. The bombing also injured 35 others.
The Bulgarian interior ministry said that three weeks before the attack, Hassan and Farah were seen in a number of nearby cities.
It is believed that they checked into hotels and hired cars using fake IDs bearing several aliases including Brian Jeremiah Jameson, Jacque Felipe Martin and Ralph William Rico.
The two suspects’ nationalities had previously been revealed, but Bulgarian authorities did not release further details until today.
Interior Minister Tsvetlin Yovchev would not say why the names and photos were being released now, only stating that the ministry had "received data from international partners."
On Monday, the armed wing of Hezbollah was added to the EU’s list of terror organizations after a unanimous decision by the EU's 28 foreign ministers.
With files from CTV’s Ottawa Bureau Chief Robert Fife and The Associated Press
