Eric Fefenberg, AFP | Building in the northern Paris suburb of Saint-Denis where French special forces raided an apartment on Nov. 18, 2015

French police on Saturday extended the detention of Jawad Bendaoud, the man who admitted lending his Saint-Denis apartment to the suspected ringleader of the Paris attacks. Seven other people arrested during Wednesday’s raid have been released.

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Three suspects were killed when French anti-terror police raided the apartment early Wednesday morning, including Islamic State (IS) group terrorist Abdelhamid Abaaoud and his "cousin" Hasna Aitboulahcen.

Eight people were arrested during Wednesday’s police operation, including Bendaoud and a woman in his company. Bendaoud told French media he had no idea his hosts were jihadists, before being handcuffed and led away by police.

"A friend asked me to put up two of his friends for a few days … I said that there was no mattress, they told me ... they just wanted water and to pray," Bendaoud said.

"I was asked to do a favour, so I did. I didn't know they were terrorists."

Bendaoud has previously been in prison for beating someone to death. The Saint-Denis flat at the centre of the investigation is believed to have been a squat he rented out from time to time, French media reported.

Under French anti-terrorism laws, Bendaoud can be held in custody up to six days before being charged or released.

‘Five thousand rounds of ammunition’

Five days after 130 people were killed in France's worst-ever terror attack, on Friday November 13, police closed in on suspected ringleader Abdelhamid Abaaoud in the Saint-Denis apartment.

A source close to the investigation told AFP it was Abaaoud's presumed cousin Hasna Aitboulahcen killed with him in the raid who unknowingly led them to the apartment.

The source said a witness had reported seeing Aitboulahcen with two men, one of whom resembled Abaaoud, after the attacks on Friday night.

The young woman was immediately placed under surveillance.

On Tuesday she was seen talking to a man in what the source believes was a conversation to negotiate the accommodation of Abaaoud and a second man.

She then went to pick up the two men, who were hiding in nearby Aubervilliers in an area home to many warehouses near the highway.

Aitboulahcen took the men to an apartment in Saint-Denis, and police launched their assault at 4:20am the next morning.

A violent gunfight in which police launched 5,000 rounds of ammunition at the heavily-armed group holed up in the apartment left both Abaaoud and Aitboulahcen dead.

A third person, who blew themself up in the raid, has yet to be identified.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)



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