Salah Abdeslam, the leading suspect in the 2015 jihadist attacks on Paris. (screen capture: YouTube)
BRUSSELS (AFP) — A Belgian court on Monday delayed until February the trial of Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam over a shooting in Brussels that led to his capture.
Abdeslam, the sole surviving suspect in the November 2015 Paris attacks which left 130 people dead, had been due to face trial in the Belgian capital this week.
But following an application last week by Abdeslam’s lawyer Sven Mary, the court on Monday ruled the trial would start on Monday, February 5, and run until Friday, with Wednesday as a rest day.
Abdeslam and Sofian Ayari, also implicated in the shootout, face charges of “attempting to murder several police officers in a terrorist context” and “carrying prohibited weapons in a terrorist context.”
In this November 13, 2015 file photo, rescue workers tend to victims of a jihadi terror attack in the 10th district of Paris. (AP Photo/Jacques Brinon, file)
Both men were captured days after the March 15, 2016, shootout, ending a four-month manhunt for Abdeslam for his alleged role in the Paris attacks.
Get The Times of Israel's Daily Editionby email and never miss our top stories
The 28-year-old is linked to the same cell that carried out suicide bombings in Brussels a week after the gunbattle. Thirty-two people were killed at Brussels airport and a metro station near the EU’s headquarters.
Abdeslam, born in Brussels of Moroccan origin, has spent nearly 20 months in isolation, under 24-hour video surveillance, at a prison in the Paris region since his transfer to France in April last year.
He has refused to cooperate with investigators and his offer to appear at the Brussels trial came as a surprise.
Advertisement
The hearings are a highly anticipated chance to see if he has changed his mind about keeping silent.
Screen capture from VTM shows Salah Abdeslam, center, as he is arrested by police and bundled into a police vehicle during a raid in the Molenbeek neighborhood of Brussels, Belgium, March 18, 2016. (VTM via AP)
We can't do this work alone.
The war with Iran has been draining for all of us in Israel. But when I heard about a high casualty incident – ballistic missile impacts in Arad and Dimona that left nearly 200 people wounded – I drank a cup of coffee, packed a bag, and headed south.
There, I spoke with Shilgit, the head of an after-school program for underprivileged youth. Standing outside her destroyed center, Shilgit said it was a miracle that no children were hurt and spoke about the community coming together in the hours since.
As a Times of Israel reporter, I’m committed to telling stories of resilience like Shilgit’s. But my colleagues and I can't do this alone. If you value work like this,please consider joining our reader support group, The Times of Israel Community. Your financial support is essential to keep real human reporting like this going.
We’re really pleased that you’ve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.
That’s why we started the Times of Israel - to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world.
So now we have a request. Unlike other news outlets, we haven’t put up a paywall. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community.
For as little as $6 a month you can help support our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.
Thank you, David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel
