Brussels shooting suspect to fight handover to Belgium

PARIS — Mehdi Nemmouche, the French Islamist arrested on suspicion of a triple murder at the Brussels Jewish Museum, is to contest being handed over by France to Belgium, his lawyer said Wednesday.

Nemmouche, who was arrested in Marseille on Friday, wants to stand trial in France and will fight a European arrest warrant issued by the Belgian authorities, the lawyer, Apolin Pepiezep told AFP.

Nemmouche’s decision to contest the warrant could significantly delay his return to Belgium, where authorities wish to question him in connection with a shooting last week which left three people dead and another man in a critical condition with no prospect of recovery.

Also Wednesday, it emerged that France was warned by Germany as early as March that Nemmouche might be a security threat, according to a report in France’s Novelle Observateur.

The suspect was stopped on May 29 by customs officers performing routine checks and declined to open his bag, leading the customs officers to evacuate the bus and check the contents of every bag aboard. The weapons found in his luggage “were arms of the same type used on May 24 in Brussels,” the French news agency AFP reported.

Four people — an Israeli couple, a French woman and a Belgian man — were killed in the attack on the Jewish Museum of Belgium in central Brussels.

In an extraordinary move, a Paris court agreed to a French prosecutor’s request to extend Nemmouche’s detention by 24 hours, a rare measure in France that can be applied only in cases where there is an “imminent” risk of attack.

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked French President Francois Hollande for his country’s capture of the alleged gunman.

In a telephone conversation, Netanyahu also thanked Hollande for his “strong and consistent stand against anti-Semitism,” according to the Prime Minister’s Office.