Paris terror attack suspect ‘ready to talk’ after arrest

SALAH ABDESLAM, the key suspect in the Paris terror attacks, is “cooperating” with Belgian police after his arrest on Friday, his lawyers said, raising hopes that Europe’s most deadly terrorist network could be unravelling.

With the 26-year-old French-Moroccan apparently prepared to talk, Interpol issued an advisory to Britain and other member states to be extra vigilant at border controls as accomplices seek to flee Europe before being unmasked.

Abdeslam was caught with a suspected accomplice, Monir Ahmed Alaaj, alias Amine Choukry, on Friday afternoon during a police raid on a flat in Molenbeek, his home neighborhood of Brussels and a hotbed of Islamism.

Given his apparently key role in providing logistics for the Paris commandos, he could prove to be a mine of information. Bernard Cazeneuve, the French interior minister, described his arrest as a “major blow” to Isil in Europe.

“Anyone linked to Abdeslam will be concerned that their location could be revealed and attempt to run to try and avoid detection,” said Jurgen Stock, Interpol secretary general. “It is vital countries make thorough checks to avoid suspects slipping through the net.” In particular, Interpol advised to look out for false passports.

Two known fugitives are at large. Mohamed Abrini, 30, was filmed with Abdeslam on Nov 11 at a filling station on a motorway linking Paris and Brussels. A second suspect used false papers in the name of Soufiane Kayal at the border between Austria and Hungary on September 9 when he was travelling with Abdeslam.

François Hollande, the French president, warned on Friday that the terror network was “much wider” than previously thought. Images of Abdeslam’s arrest seen by Belgian site VTM suggest that at the time of his arrest, he was trying to hide a document may have contained contacts.

After treatment in hospital for a wounded leg, Abdeslam appeared before a magistrate at Brussels’s judicial police headquarters. He was formally charged - along with Alaaj - with “terrorist murder” over the November atrocities in which 130 people died. A third man, named as Abid A, was charged with participation in a terror organisation and hiding criminals.

France, which has issued a European warrant for Abdeslam’s arrest, has requested he be extradited “as quickly as possible”, a process that Charles Michel, the Belgian prime minister, said could take up to two weeks.

Abdeslam’s lawyer, Sven Mary, said he would fight extradition to France, but that his client was cooperating.

Francis Molins, the Paris prosecutor, said Abdeslam had already told his captors that he was supposed to blow himself up at the Stade de France football stadium outside Paris but “backed out” at the last minute. There had been speculation he had pulled out after a primed suicide vest was found in a dustbin in southern Paris after the attacks.