Paris Attack Suspect Abdeslam Arrested In Brussels Raid
KABUL: (MEP) The main suspect of Paris attacks in November 13, Salah Abdeslam, has been arrested on Friday in a raid in Brussels, French authorities say.
Belgian police detained five people in total following raids. They include “Mounir Ahmed Al Hadj”, AKA Amine Choukri, who is also linked to the Paris attacks, and three members of the family that allowed Abdeslam and Choukri to stay in their apartment.
French President Francois Hollande said he expected Abdeslam to be extradited to France “as rapidly as possible”.
The arrest came hours after prosecutors revealed that Abdeslam’s fingerprints were found in an apartment in another part of Brussels earlier this week following a raid in which a suspected ISIL militant was killed.
Several exchanges of gunfire rang out in the city’s Molenbeek area on Friday afternoon – the scene of past investigations – and police officers were seen surrounding an apartment block there on Friday afternoon. Television footage showed masked, black-clad security forces guarding a street in the capital and reporters at the scene described white smoke rising from a rooftop.
Belgium has been at the center of the investigation into the Paris attacks almost from day one.
Abdeslam, a 26-year-old French national born in Brussels, had lived in Molenbeek before the Paris attacks.
He is believed to have returned to Belgium immediately after the attacks, in which his brother Brahim blew himself up.
At least 129 people died after a series of violent incidents around Paris, France, on Friday 13 November 2015. Gunmen and bombers attacked restaurants, the Bataclan theatre where US rock band Eagles Of Death Metal were playing, and the Stade de France national stadium.
