Belgium accepts transfer of Paris attacks suspect
Hamza Attou was seen on CCTV driving Abdeslam back to Brussels just hours after the Paris assaults, along with Mohamed Amri who is also in custody in Belgium.
The Brussels court said that while Attou could be sent to France, he would have to serve any eventual sentence in Belgium. Lawyers for Attou did not immediately confirm the decision to AFP.
France has requested the extradition of four suspects, including Attou and Amri, charged in Belgium over the Paris carnage.
The third man is named as Ali Oulkadi, who dropped Abdeslam off at a Brussels address the day after the attacks.
The fourth man, Mohamed Bakkali, is thought to have played a logistical role in the jihadist cell, notably renting a BMW seen near three safe houses where the Paris attacks were prepared.
No indication was given by the court when extradition requests for the three others would be treated, Belga said.All four men were subject to European arrest warrants issued in late April, setting the stage for the extradition procedure.
Belga news agency reported that the warrant for Attou specifies that French authorities want him for the minor charge of aiding a criminal.
In Belgium, Attou and Amri are both charged with the murder of all the victims of the Paris attacks.
Amri, 27, and Attou, 21, were arrested in the notorious Molenbeek district of Brussels the day after the Paris attacks.
Attou has since told investigators that Abdeslam claimed his explosives vest failed to detonate during the coordinated gun and suicide bomb attacks, which killed 130 people.
Oulkadi, 31, was seen driving in Brussels with Abdeslam on November 14. He was a close friend of Abdeslam’s brother Brahim, one of the Paris suicide bombers.
Abdeslam, 26, the sole surviving suspect in the Paris attacks, was arrested in Brussels on March 18 after four months on the run as Europe’s most wanted man.
He is now in France awaiting trial over his alleged role in the killings and is to be questioned by French investigators for the first time today.
He has told investigators he was in Paris on the night of November 13, and was supposed to blow himself up but changed his mind. — AFP
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