Elite forces will guard the 28-year-old’s transfer from a jail near the French capital to the trial, while hundreds of Belgian security forces will protect the court building. Abdeslam, a Belgian-born French national of Moroccan descent, is charged with “attempting to murder several police officers in a terrorist context” and of “carrying prohibited weapons in a terrorist context”. The charges concern a gunbattle in the Belgian capital on March 15, 2016, four months after the Paris attacks, which led to his capture days later. Three police officers were wounded and a fellow jihadist was killed. Abdeslam and the man arrested with him, Tunisian national Sofiane Ayari, 24, could serve up to 40 years in prison if convicted. The trial is the prelude to a later one in France and prosecutors hope the Brussels trial will yield clues not only about the attacks that killed 130 people in Paris but also the suicide bombings months later in Brussels. Abdeslam has refused point-blank to speak to investigators throughout the nearly two years since his arrest, which capped a four-month hunt for Europe’s most wanted man. But he has insisted on attending the Brussels trial, which is expected to last four days, raising the question of whether he will use it to break his silence. Belgium’s federal prosecutor Frederic Van Leeuw said “it is important for the victims” that the trial yield clues behind the two attacks. Massive security Tight secrecy surrounds the plans for transferring Abdeslam from Paris to the Palais de Justice in… [Read full story]
'I'm not afraid of letting anything slip because I'm not ashamed of what I am.' The main suspect in the Paris attacks said he was "not ashamed" in a letter to a woman who has been writing to him in prison, according to extracts published in the French press Friday. Salah Abdeslam has refused to respond to questions from French judges about the November 13, 2015 attacks in which 130 people died at the hands of Islamic State group jihadists. But in correspondence with an anonymous woman published by the daily newspaper Liberation he appeared "talkative for the first time,"…... [read more]
Ahmed and Boufassil are accused of meeting with Abrini in Birmingham in July 2015 and giving him the money. LONDON: Two people appeared in court in London on Friday (Apr 29) accused of giving thousands of pounds to Brussels and Paris attacks suspect Mohamed Abrini when he was in Britain last summer. Briton Mohammed Ali Ahmed, 26, and Belgian citizen Zakaria Boufassil, 26, both from Birmingham in central England, are charged with giving £3,000 (US$4,400) to Abrini. Abrini has confessed to being "the man in the hat" caught on video with suicide bombers at Brussels airport on March 22, before…... [read more]
The court in Versailles, south of Paris, sentenced Cedric Rey, 29, to two years in jail with 18 months suspended for attempted fraud against a state fund for the victims of terrorism.Rey's account of the Nov 13, 2015, attack was used by several French media, including AFP.The ambulance driver claimed he was having a drink with two friends outside the Bataclan when three Islamic State jihadists stormed the venue during a concert, launching a three-hour bomb and gun attack that left 90 people dead.Rey claimed that one of the gunmen aimed his rifle at him and fired but that a…... [read more]
Wanted fugitive Salah Abdeslam, suspected of involvement in last month's Paris attacks, got past three police checks in France as he fled to Belgium just hours after the terror assaults, a source close to the Belgian investigation said Confirming a report in the French daily Le Parisien, the source quoted Hamza Attou, suspected along with Mohammed Amri of driving Abdeslam to Brussels the day after the coordinated November 13 attacks in which 130 people died. At the first checkpoint Attou and Amri admitted to police that they had just smoked marijuana, but were let go, the source said. All three…... [read more]
Mayor of New York Bill de Blasio and Mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo place flowers near the offices of French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo in Paris on January 20, 2015, to pay tribute to the twelve people killed when gunmen armed with Kalashnikovs and a roc Four men accused of having links to the jihadists behind the Paris attacks were due to appear before a judge in France on Tuesday, while police in neighboring Germany staged fresh raids on suspected extremists. The four men, aged between 22 and 28, were arrested on Friday on suspicion of helping supply weapons and…... [read more]
