Salah Abdeslam: Legal dispute holds up investigation into Paris attacker

Disagreements between French and Belgian authorities could slow extradition

Salah Abdeslam was arrested in Brussels (PA)

Tensions between Belgian and French authorities are threatening to stymie the investigation in the wake of the capture of Salah Abdeslam.

Abdeslam, who spent his second night in a maximum-security prison in Bruges, is assumed to be the last surviving member of the 10-man jihadist team that carried out the November Paris attacks that killed 130 people.

While Belgian authorities are not commenting officially, they are thought to echo the concerns of Abdeslam’s Belgian lawyer, who announced legal action against the Paris prosecutor François Molins on 20 March, accusing him of breaching the confidentiality of the investigation.

“Nobody in Belgium has communicated anything apart from a few general observations about Salah’s medical condition,” said Sven Mary, who was hired as Abdeslam’s lawyer shortly after his arrest in a police raid in Brussels on 18 March. “In an attempt to suck up to French people by reading from an interrogation... it seems to me that a bridge has been crossed.”

The move by Mr Mary is likely to slow the process of extraditing Salah to France and cloud the investigation at a time when law enforcement authorities across Europe are expected to be working together closely to tackle the threat from terrorism.

Mr Molins revealed on 19 March that Abdeslam told Belgian officials he had “wanted to blow himself up at the Stade de France” as a suicide bomber in the Paris attacks, but that he backed out at the last minute.

Speaking to broadcaster RTL, Belgian justice minister Koen Geens did not comment on Mr Mary’s planned lawsuit, but did underline the need for everyone involved in the investigation to respect confidentiality and procedures.

It follows a series of exasperating incidents in recent months for Belgian authorities, who felt their investigations were compromised by French officials leaking information to journalists.

The raid that caught Abdeslam was almost thwarted by “the irresponsibility of some of the press”, according to Claude Fontaine, the head of Belgium’s judicial police. He pointed in particular to French weekly news magazine L’Obs, which revealed on the afternoon of 18 March on its website that Salah Abdeslam’s fingerprints were found in a house raided in south Brussels on 15 March. As a result, the elite police brought forward their raid on the house in the Molenbeek district where Abdeslam and an associate were hiding.

The capture of Abdeslam is seen as a rare coup for the Belgian authorities after a series of dead ends. However, they have been on the receiving end of criticism from French officials, who note the Molenbeek connection in many recent Islamic terrorist attacks, including the Charlie Hebdo killings in January 2015 and the Madrid bombings in 2004.

While Belgian investigators said the Abdeslam trail ran cold soon after he returned to Brussels on November 14, the day after the attacks, residents in Molenbeek have said he continued to wander through the neighbourhood with his accomplices and even used to walk past the police station.

French MP and former anti-terrorist official Alain Marsaud said on 19 March “either Salah Abdeslam was very smart or the Belgians were rubbish,” adding, “Belgian naivety cost us 130 lives.” Belgian foreign minister Didier Reynders, said his comments were “deplorable”.

Abdeslam was shot in the leg on 18 March along with a suspected accomplice, Mounir Ahmed Alaaj, also known as Amine Choukri.Abdeslam has been charged with “terrorist murder” and participating in a terror group.