Salah Abdeslam, who is accused of fleeing in the aftermath of the November 13 2015 Islamic State attacks in Paris that killed 130 people, refused to attend Thursday’s hearing in Brussels. A total of 162 people died in the November 2015 attacks in Paris and the subsequent March 2016 bombings in Brussels. Abdeslam’s lawyer, Sven Mary, said that the getaway shooting “was a spontaneous act, not a terrorist act”, and that the time to try the Paris attacks was in 2020 in Paris, not now in Brussels. The trial in Brussels hinged on who fired a second weapon involved in the shootout: Ayari, Abdeslam or the dead jihadi, Mohamed Belkaid. A lawyer for the police, Valerie Lefevre, said Ayari and Abdeslam were both members of the group that attacked Paris and Brussels.

Source: Irish Independent February 08, 2018 16:18 UTC