A convoy of French police and members of the National Gendarmerie Intervention Group transporting Paris terror attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam, arrive at the courthouse for his first questioning by anti-terror judges in Paris yesterday.
PARIS: Top Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam remained tight-lipped when questioned by a French anti-terror judge for the first time yesterday, one of his lawyers said.
Authorities had hoped he would shed some light on the operational details of the November attacks that killed 130, as well as provide clues as to whether other members of the wider jihadist cell are still at large.
But his lawyer Frank Berton said: “He did not want to say anything today.”
The 26-year-old was prepared to speak at “a later date”, the lawyer added. “We need to give him time.” Mr Abdeslam is the last surviving member of the team of the Islamic State (IS) gunmen and suicide bombers who killed 130 people at bars and restaurants, in the Bataclan concert hall and outside the Stade de France national stadium last November.
For months, he was the most wanted fugitive in Europe until he was tracked down and arrested on March 18 in the Brussels neighbourhood of Molenbeek where he grew up.
Transferred to France on April 27, he is being held at Fleury-Merogis prison, southeast of Paris.
Mr Abdeslam was brought for questioning in central Paris in a large black 4x4 vehicle with tinted windows, escorted by heavily armed elite police and with a helicopter flying overhead.
But although he had spoken to investigators while in custody in Belgium, he refused to cooperate yesterday.
The Paris prosecutor’s office said: “From the start, he exercised his right to remain silent by refusing to reply to questions from an investigating magistrate. He also refused to give his reasons for using his right to silence. He declined to confirm the statements he made previously to the Belgian police and to a Belgian investigating magistrate,” the prosecutor’s office added.
A childhood friend of suspected ringleader Abdelhamid Abaaoud, Mr Abdeslam is thought to have played a key role both on the night of the Paris attacks and in their preparation.
Two other suspects have been arrested in France, but they are considered secondary participants.
Mr Abdeslam dropped off the three suicide bombers who blew themselves up outside the Stade de France, killing one person.
He is thought to have backed out of blowing himself up. An abandoned explosives vest was found in a dustbin in southern Paris close to where mobile phone data placed him on the night of the attacks, although his DNA was not found on it. CCTV pictures from petrol stations showed him fleeing back to Belgium in the hours after the attack.