Paris attacks fugitive was planning fresh assault — Brussels
Belgian foreign minister says police taking Salah Abdeslam’s claim seriously because ‘we found a lot of weapons’
Belgium’s foreign minister said Sunday that terror suspect Salah Abdeslam has told investigators he was planning to “restart something” from Brussels.
Foreign Minister Didier Reynders said Abdeslam said “he was ready to restart something from Brussels, and it’s maybe the reality.”
Reynders said authorities are taking the claim seriously because “we found a lot of weapons, heavy weapons in the first investigations, and we have seen a new network of people around him in Brussels.”
Abdeslam, captured Friday in a police raid in Brussels, was charged Saturday with “terrorist murder” by Belgian authorities. He is a top suspect in the November 13 attacks in Paris that left 130 people dead.
The Belgian-born French citizen, who was caught unarmed after being shot in the leg, told interrogators he had planned to blow himself up at the Stade de France stadium in Paris but had backed out at the last minute.
A day after his capture, the 26-year-old was taken to a maximum security prison in the northwestern city of Bruges where police are eager to question the man who is the only survivor of the 10-man commando believed to have carried out the attacks.
His lawyer Sven Mary said Abdeslam would fight his extradition to Paris beginning with a legal complaint against a French prosecutor who divulged the details of the first interrogation with the suspect to journalists on Saturday.
“I don’t understand why a prosecutor in Paris has to communicate at this stage on an investigation in Belgium,” Mary told Le Soir newspaper on Sunday.
Abdeslam “is worth gold. He is collaborating, he’s communicating, he is not using his right to remain silent,” Mary said, urging patience.
Paris prosecutor Francois Molins on Saturday told reporters Abdeslam had played a “central role” in planning the November attacks, which targeted bars, restaurants and the Bataclan concert hall and were claimed by the Islamic State group (IS).
His brother Brahim blew himself up in a restaurant in the east of the French capital, and Molins said Abdeslam had planned to do the same at the Stade de France before changing his mind.
Investigators believe Abdeslam rented rooms in the Paris area to be used by the attackers and a car that he used to drive them to the Stade de France before heading to the 18th arrondissement in the north of the capital.
Days after the attacks an explosives-filled suicide vest was found in Paris in an area where mobile phone signals indicated Abdeslam had been.
Abdeslam was “directly linked to the preparation, the organisation and, unfortunately, the perpetration of these attacks,” said Hollande, who was in Brussels for an EU summit when the raid took place.
French President Francois Hollande said shortly after his arrest Friday that he wanted to see Abdeslam transferred to France as quickly as possible to face prosecution.
Abdeslam’s arrest in the gritty Molenbeek neighborhood of Brussels was hailed by European and US leaders, while French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said it dealt a “major blow” to IS jihadists operating in Europe.
But the minister warned Saturday that the threat level remained “extremely high” and said France was deploying extra police officers to its borders to step up controls following discussions with Interpol.
Abdeslam is behind bars in solitary confinement at the Bruges high-security prison alongside Mehdi Nemmouche, who carried out a fatal attack on the Jewish Museum in Brussels in 2014.
Police have also detained a suspected accomplice, known only under the false IDs of Amine Choukri or Mounir Ahmed Alaaj, but at a prison near Liege in eastern Belgium.
Former small-time criminal Abdeslam is believed to be the last surviving member of the 10-man jihadist team that carried out the Paris attacks.
Two more suspects are wanted in connection with the killings — Mohamed Abrini, who became friends with Abdeslam when they were teenagers, and another fugitive known only by a name used on false papers, Soufiane Kayal.
Prosecutors said special forces raided a house in Molenbeek on Friday because of evidence found in an operation elsewhere in Brussels on Tuesday, in which another Paris-linked suspect died in a gunbattle.
Abdeslam’s fingerprints were found at the scene of the first raid.
The police on Friday were also convinced they were on the right trail by the unusual number of pizzas ordered by a resident of the Molenbeek house, Belgian media said.
