Jewish museum shooting suspect appeals extradition

A French-Algerian man suspected of carrying out a deadly shooting at the Jewish Museum in Brussels is appealing a court decision to extradite him to Belgium, his lawyer said on Saturday.

“Mehdi Nemmouche was informed of the decision of the court of appeal in Versailles on Thursday and he filed an appeal notice the same day,” lawyer Apolin Pepiezep told AFP.

Nemmouche, who was detained several days after the attack in which four people died, will now have 15 days to challenge the ruling. A final decision must then be made within 40 days.

“We are contesting the decision to show that the court of appeal hasn’t applied the law,” Pepiezep said.

The court ruled on Thursday that Nemmouche, who spent more than a year fighting alongside radical Islamists in Syria, should be handed over to the Belgian authorities for killings “with a terrorist connotation.”

He was arrested on May 30 in the southern city of Marseille in a bus coming from Brussels during a random check by customs officials.

Nemmouche had in his possession a revolver and a Kalashnikov rifle — similar weapons to those used in the shooting — as well as a portable camera.

A Jewish Israeli couple was killed in the May 24 shooting, as well as a French woman and Belgian man.