Lawyer for Paris attacks suspect says police shooting was criminal, not terror

8 February 2018, 5:42 pm

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BRUSSELS — A lawyer for the sole surviving suspect in the 2015 Islamic State attacks in Paris has denied any links to terrorism in the police shootout that led to his client’s capture.

Belgian lawyer Sven Mary, center, attends the second day of the trial of Salah Abdeslam and Soufiane Ayari at the Brussels Justice Palace in Brussels on February 8, 2018. (Didier Lebrun, Pool Photo via AP)

Lawyer Sven Mary also says Thursday that the attempted murder case against suspect Salah Abdeslam should be thrown out because court orders were in French and not in Dutch. Abdeslam is a French-speaking native of Belgium, a linguistically divided nation.

Mary says the 2016 shootout that left three police officers injured “was a spontaneous act, not a terrorist act,” and the terrorism charges against Abdeslam and another man are invalid.

His co-defendant has denied shooting. Abdeslam refused to testify at the trial that opened Monday and declined to appear in court for the second hearing Thursday.

— AP