Belgian prosecutors say the top suspect in the November terrorist attack on Paris can be extradited to France.
Advertisement
The arrest comes as part of the same investigation that led to the March 24 arrest of Reda Kriket, 34, in the Paris suburb of Argenteuil, and another suspect in the Netherlands a few days later. Abdeslam was captured in Brussels four days before terror attacks [NYT report] struck an airport and metro station in the capital. “He [Y.A.] has been charged with participation in the activities of a terrorist group”, the federal prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
“Salah Abdeslam wants to be handed over to the French authorities”, Moisse told reporters in Brussels.
“As Salah Abdeslam had declared to agree to be transferred to France, a federal magistrate took his formal declaration today…” Also used the alias Monir Ahmed Alaaj. Abdeslam was treated as a common criminal and allowed to spend more time with his lawyer than the police investigators and the legal proceedings focused on the conditions for his extradition. Police and soldiers dispersed throughout the capital of Brussels on Saturday to arrest people who broke bans on demonstrations, with more than a dozen left-wing protesters arrested in the Bourse neighborhood. Before that, he was questioned for three hours exclusively about the Paris attacks-and not about possible further terror plots.
Kriket’s arrest prevented an “imminent” attack on France, according to the country’s interior minister and the public prosecutor in Paris.
Two other suspects – Abderrahmane A.
Last week. hundreds of black-clad youth shouting Nazi slogans disrupted a memorial at Brussels’ Borse Square that had been called on behalf of 32 people killed in the March 22 terrorist attacks at Brussels airport and subway system.
Mohamed said his brother had chosen not to blow himself up, to save lives. The agency adds that a judge went to the prison in Bruges where Abelslam is being held in order to consider the extradition request.
Advertisement
Investigators believe his detention in Brussels precipitated last week’s suicide bombings in Brussels, and that the atrocities in both cities were carried out by the same network from the self-styled Islamic State organisation.
