French intelligence authorities believe Salah Abdeslam, a main suspect in the Islamic State’s coordinated attacks in Paris, has successfully escaped to Syria. The list was based on information from Belgium’s security services, and included both the mastermind of the operation, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, and the two brothers, Salah and Brahim Abdeslam, who participated in mid-November attacks.
Advertisement
Belgian authorities have lowered their threat alert to the second-highest level in the capital, Brussels.
Unidentified French intelligence sources have reportedly told CNN that Salah Abdeslam, who was one of France’s most wanted criminals in the wake of the Paris terror attack that left 129 people dead, has allegedly fled the country for the Middle East.
France and Belgium are hunting suspects and would-be attackers following the shootings and bombings in Paris on November 13 that killed 130 people and injured hundreds.
Also on Friday a Brussels court remanded two other people charged with terror offences – French national Ali Oulkadi, 31, and an unnamed man arrested on Tuesday – in custody for another month.
Abrini’s mother also maintained her son’s innocence and asked him to cooprate with the cops who have a warrant out for his arrest.
The lawyer, Olivier Martins, told Belgian news organizations that his client, Oulkadi, got a call November 14 to pick up a friend at the Bockstael subway station in Laeken, a suburb northwest of Brussels. “For my client, a childhood friend of the two brothers, it was a shock, He could not understand it and could not think clearly”. By then, he had vanished.
It is unclear what role Abdeslam played in the attacks though it is thought that he drove the attackers to their destinations after investigators found his fingerprints in an abandoned vehicle. Another brother was arrested, but claimed he and his family had no knowledge of the attacks and was later released.
The 24-year-old German man is suspected of delivering four Kalashnikov rifles to a Paris address, prosecutors said, adding that it is not clear who the man sold them to.
Advertisement
“All I was given was a number”, Muriel Targnion told the paper.
