“The Investigating Judge has issued an European and global arrest warrant against Mohamed Abrini”.
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Mohamed Abrini, 30, was caught on camera at a gas station with Abdeslam on November 11, two days before the November 13 Paris attacks, Belgian authorities said.
Abrini was driving a Renault Clio used in the attacks.
Henry Samuel in Paris writes that the suspected ringleader of the Paris attacks returned to the Bataclan concert venue while a police operation to kill the remaining gunmen was still underway, the Paris prosecutor has revealed.
For two days parents scrambled to cope with the extraordinary decision to close schools which authorities said was necessary to foil an imminent Paris-style attack by jihadists.
Molins said he had put under formal investigation a Frenchman who had provided lodging for Abaaoud and his associates at the apartment in the suburb of St. Denis.
Abaaoud was killed with his female cousin and another man in a shootout with police at an apartment in northern Paris five days after the series of shootings and suicide bombings in the French capital.
Abdelhamid Abaaoud and an accomplice are thought to have been planning to attack La Defense on November 18 or 19, Paris Prosecutor Francois Molins said.
Some relatives of victims of the November 13 attacks that left 130 dead in Paris are criticizing the French government for not having done enough to prevent the attacks – and at least two say they will not attend Friday’s national commemoration ceremony. About half the stations on its metro system will re-open today along with city schools, but 300 more police officers and 200 soldiers will be deployed. Abdeslam, who French authorities have suggested could have been linked to a discarded suicide vest found in a southern Paris neighbourhood on Monday, crossed into Belgium the day after the attacks. The fifth person, whose name was not released, was detained following raids Monday, and is now facing charges “for participation in the activities of a terrorist group and terrorist murders”, the Belgian Federal Prosecutor’s office said.
Meanwhile, authorities in France and Belgium continued to search for two men believed directly linked to the attacks.
Abdeslam is the man who French police stopped in the hours after the Paris attacks as he made his way to Belgium, but police ultimately allowed him to continue on his journey.
“Indeed, there were indications that there would be attacks on Sunday evening and they did not materialize”, Jambon said.
One of Abdeslam’s brothers, Brahim, blew himself up outside a Paris cafe during the attacks. Several of the suspects have links to Belgium.
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On the diplomatic front, French President Francis Hollande visited Washington for talks with President Barak Obama as part of a push for the global community to bolster the campaign against Islamic State extremists.
