Salah Abdeslam’s lawyer to sue France prosecutor
Lawyer of Paris attacks suspect says he plans to sue French prosecution for breach of his client’s confidentiality.
The lawyer defending the prime surviving suspect in the Paris attacks said he will sue a French prosecutor for revealing a private admission that his client planned to blow himself up with other ISIL assailants but backed out at the last moment.
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Speaking two days after Salah Abdeslam was captured during a police raid in Brussels, his lawyer Sven Mary accused the lead French investigator on Sunday of violating confidentiality by quoting Abdeslam’s statement at a news conference in Paris on Saturday evening.
“I cannot let this pass,” Mary told Belgian state broadcaster RTBF.
At the Paris news conference, Francois Molins read from Abdeslam’s statement to a magistrate in Brussels, saying: “He wanted to blow himself up at the Stade de France and, I quote, ‘backed out’.”
Abdeslam is believed to have told Belgian investigators about his plans after he was arrested on Friday in a raid in the Molenbeek neighbourhood of Brussels.
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The suspect has already admitted to being in Paris on November 13, 2015, the night of the coordinated bombing and gun attacks on restaurants, bars, the Stade de France stadium, and the Bataclan concert hall, according to a Belga news agency report citing Mary.
Abdeslam, who became one of Europe’s most wanted criminals in the wake of the attacks, has been charged with “participating in terrorist murder” and taking part in the activities of a terrorist organisation, a statement from the Belgian Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office said.
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Mary told journalists his client was cooperating with police but would resist attempts to extradite him to France.
Meanwhile, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said on Sunday that more than 600 people have now left France for Syria and Iraq, with about 800 others wanting to join the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL,also known as ISIS) group there.
The figures show little respite in the number of people joining ISIL despite multiple bombing campaigns against its strongholds and a crackdown by French authorities to prevent people from leaving the country after two major attacks in France last year.
MAP: Where the Paris attacks happened
“We are in a battle on our soil,” Walls said in a speech to Socialist party supporters.
“Each day [we] … trace networks, locate cells, arrest individuals. Today 2,029 French citizens or residents are implicated in jihad networks.”
European governments have been tightening anti-terrorism laws as the Syrian conflict enters its sixth year, agreeing to share more intelligence and taking down radical websites to try to stop citizens from going to fight in the Middle East and bringing militancy home.