French president says he will seek ‘rapid’ handover of Abdelslam although Belgium says extradition could take several weeks

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Salah Abdeslam, the prime suspect in the Paris attacks, will fight his extradition to France, a legal challenge that could delay his trial over the massacre.

Abdeslam’s lawyer, Sven Mary, said his client had been formally charged in connection with the Paris attacks and was “collaborating” with Belgian investigators but would challenge his extradition to France.

After spending 10 minutes with the suspect, a 26-year-old former tram driver, Mary said: “France has demanded his extradition. I can tell you that we will refuse extradition to France. We will first see whether the European arrest warrant is legal.”

Paris attacks: Abdeslam's trial could lift lid on secret world of Isis Read more

Legal experts cautioned that Abdeslam’s refusal did not mean extradition would fail as under the European arrest warrant anyone who commits a serious offence in the EU can be sent back to face justice in the country where the crime took place.

Florence Rouas-Elbazis, a French lawyer, told Agence France-Presse: “It is not because he refuses that he cannot be handed over, but it could lead to an additional delay.”



Abdeslam was arrested on Friday in the Brussels suburb of Molenbeek where he grew up. He became the most wanted man in Europe after going into hiding shortly after the bombings and shootings in Paris on 13 November that left 130 people dead.

An accomplice arrested with him, believed to be Amine Choukri, has been similarly charged with “terrorist killings and participating in the activities of a terrorist group”.



The French prime minister, Manuel Valls, welcomed Abdeslam’s arrest but said the terror threat remained “very high”. “As high as, if not higher than, we had before 13 November,” Valls added.

“Other networks, other cells, other individuals in France and in Europe are getting organised to prepare new attacks. We must remain mobilised at a national as well as European level.”

Abdeslam was officially charged with “with participation in terrorist murder” and in the activities of a terrorist organisation.

A four-month international manhunt came to an end on Friday when heavily armed Belgian police tracked Abdeslam to an apartment in Molenbeek, Brussels, 500 metres from where he grew up. As the suspect fled with a man believed to be an accomplice, he was shot in the leg.

Abdeslam appeared before a judge on Saturday and details emerged of how police finally caught the Belgian, thought to be the only surviving member of a 10-strong cell linked to Islamic State that carried out the attacks on the French capital.

Belgian police raided a flat in another Brussels suburb, Forest, on Tuesday, in which a suspected accomplice, Mohamed Belkaid, was killed by a special forces sniper. A black Isis flag and Kalashnikov was found near his body. Two men fled the flat, reportedly escaping on to the roof, but inside forensic experts found Abdeslam’s fingerprint on a glass.

Shortly afterwards, the fugitive called a friend saying he needed somewhere to stay. The friend alerted the police, who put an immediate trace on the mobile telephone number that Abdeslam had given. From then, it was only a matter of time.

Police traced the mobile and tracked the suspect to the apartment in Molenbeek where he was staying with another friend and three members of the friend’s family, who were also arrested on Friday. The four others also appeared before a judge.

The French president, François Hollande, called an emergency defence council meeting of ministers at the Elysée Palace on Saturday, after which the interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, said the arrest was “an important blow against the terrorist organisation Daesh [Islamic State] in Europe”.

Cazeneuve said: “This operation has removed the threat of several individuals who have proven themselves extremely dangerous and totally determined.”

Hollande said that the French authorities would seek a “rapid” extradition of Abdeslam. Hollande said: “I am sure the French legal authorities will very quickly issue an extradition request ... and the Belgian authorities will respond as favourably as possible, as quickly as possible.”

Hollande has said he would meet representatives of the victims’ families on Monday.

Belgium’s prime minister, Charles Michel, told a news conference that Abdeslam’s extradition to France could take “several weeks”.

While French ministers were quick to praise the work of Belgian police, a war of words between the two countries broke out on Saturday.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Belgian prime minister, Charles Michel, at a press conference after a state national security council meeting. Photograph: Stephanie Lecocq/EPA

Alain Marsaud, a member of the former French president Nicolas Sarkozy’s centre right party, Les Républicains, and a former anti-terrorist judge, accused the Belgian authorities of naivety.

Marsaud said: “Their naivety cost us 130 lives. I am disgusted by the inability of the Belgians to solve the problem [of radicalisation] over the last few months, last few years,” he told the Belgian newspaper Le Soir.

“I can’t help be astonished. How did it take four months to arrest one of the organisers of the attacks, when it turns out he remained within a very small area of Brussels? Perhaps I’m wrong and things were more complicated ... but we have to question the ability of the Belgian intelligence and intervention services.”

Marsaud added he expected Belgium to “extradite Salah Abdeslam as quickly as possible”.



Marsaud said: “This long period he was on the run is not a great success for the Belgian intelligence services; either Salah Abdeslam is very clever or the Belgian services are rubbish, which seems more likely.”

In response, Belgium’s foreign minister, Didier Reynders, said: “We have to be realistic ... it is deplorable to be always looking for scapegoats.”

Michel said Abdeslam’s capture had not come about by chance, but was “the fruit of enormous work” that had mobilised between 300 and 400 investigators. “The fight against the terrorist threat will continue,” he said.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Abdeslam Salah, suspected of being involved in the Paris attacks. Photograph: DSK/AFP/Getty Images

Investigators believe Abdeslam was supposed to have blown himself up after driving suicide bombers to the Stade de France football stadium where the first of several coordinated attacks was due to happen.

A suicide vest was later found in a dustbin in a district in north Paris not far from an abandoned VW Golf, linked to the terror cell. The theory was given further weight by an Isis statement claiming responsibility for the Paris attacks that mentioned a bombing in the French capital’s 18th arrondissement. There was no such bombing.

Abdeslam is known to have telephoned two accomplices in Belgium in the hours after the attacks on 13 November. The two men drove from Brussels, picked him up, and drove back to the Belgian capital, where he disappeared. The vehicle in which Abdeslam was travelling was reportedly stopped by French police twice en route, but allowed to continue.

On Saturday, a Belgian federal prosecutor Eric Van Der Sypt said: “If he starts talking, then I presume it will mean he stays longer in Belgium ... Sooner or later he will be extradited to France.”

French and Belgian anti-terrorism officials have planned a conference call during which Abdeslam’s extradition is expected to be discussed and agreed, according to Thierry Werts, a spokesperson for Belgium’s federal prosecutor’s office.

A 2002 EU agreement accelerated the extradition process between member states. Under the old system, the request had to be made at state level, now a judicial request is made. For particularly serious crimes, including alleged terrorism, the process can be fast-tracked.



Anti-terrorist police will be hoping Abdeslam can shed light on the previously unknown Algerian gunman, Belkaid, linked to the Paris attacks. Belkaid was shot on Tuesday in the Belgian police raid that led officers to Abdeslam.

In exclusive documents given to Associated Press by the Syrian opposition news site Zama al-Wsl, Belkaid described how he traveled throughout Europe and had had no experience as a jihadi as he crossed into Syria on 19 April 2014.

On Friday, officials said Belkaid was “most probably” an Abdeslam accomplice whose fake Belgian ID was used to pay for the hideout of the Paris attacks ringleader.