Sixth Person Charged in Belgium over Paris Attacks
A Belgian judge on Friday charged a sixth suspect with terrorism offenses in connection with the Paris attacks, prosecutors said, as the country pushes on with its investigation into links to the November 13 atrocities.
"Yesterday a person has been arrested in Brussels for interrogation. The investigating judge has remanded him in custody and charged him with terrorist murders and participation in the activities of a terrorist organization," the federal prosecutor said in a statement.
The prosecutor gave no further details about the suspect.
Also on Friday a Brussels court remanded two other people charged with terror offenses -- French national Ali Oulkadi, 31, and an unnamed man arrested on Tuesday -- in custody for another month.
Oulkadi's lawyer said on Friday that Oulkadi had driven key Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam across Brussels the day after the atrocities without knowing he had been involved.
"No one knew that Salah was wanted, he (Ali Oulkadi) did not know," Olivier Martins said after his client appeared in a Brussels court under armed guard as investigations continued into the November 13 Paris massacre which left 130 people dead.
Two people detained for questioning after searches in the eastern town of Verviers -- where two jihadists were killed in a gunbattle with police in January -- were released on Friday, the prosecutor said.
The first two people to be charged in Belgium over the Paris attacks were Mohammed Amri, 27, and Hamza Attou, 20, who were accused on November 16 on suspicion of helping Salah Abdeslam escape to Brussels after the carnage.
The last known sighting of Abdeslam was at a police check in Cambrai, France, in a Volkswagen Golf along with two people believed to be Amri and Attou, but he was not stopped.
Lazez Abrimi, a 39-year-old Moroccan from the Molenbeek district of Brussels, an area which has been linked to several of the suspects, was meanwhile charged last week with terrorism offenses after two guns and traces of blood were found in his car, the prosecutor said.
Belgium on Tuesday also issued an international arrest warrant for Mohamed Abrini, 30, who was filmed along with Salah Abdeslam at a petrol station in Ressons, France on the motorway to Paris, in a Renault Clio which was later used in the attacks.
Source: Agence France Presse
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