Salah Abdeslam is charged with trying to murder Belgium police in a shoot-out while on the run in Brussels.

Abdeslam refused to rise when the court session began and told the court "my silence does not make me a criminal".

The Belgian-born Frenchman was arrested along with another suspect, four days before bomb attacks killed 32 people in the Belgian capital.

Al Jazeera's Natacha Butler reports from Brussels.