Paris attacks suspect stands trial in Brussels
Salah Abdeslam faces charges relating to a police shootout in the Belgian capital in March 2016.
A court artist drawing shows Salah Abdeslam, one of the suspects in the 2015 Daesh attacks in Paris, in court during his trial in Brussels, Belgium on February 5, 2018.
The first day of the Belgian trial of the prime surviving suspect in the Daesh attacks in Paris that killed 130 people on Monday ended with no revelations.
Salah Abdeslam refused to stand or to answer questions as he went on trial for a shootout with police in his hometown of Brussels.
He arrived in the Belgian capital on Monday morning after being transferred from a prison in France. Security was high at the Brussels courthouse, with armed guards and multiple checkpoints leading to the courtroom.
Abdeslam is facing attempted murder charges in Brussels from a police shootout four months after the Paris attacks. Abdeslam fled while another man sprayed automatic gunfire and was killed.
He was captured a few days later in the same neighbourhood where he and other alleged Daesh (ISIS) fighter grew up.
Federal prosecutors in Belgium are seeking 20-year prison sentences for him, formally citing a terrorist link in the shootout.
Abdelslam is alleged to have been apart of a large network of French and Belgian Muslims, many of Moroccan decent, seduced by the ideology of Daesh and Al Qaeda. Some are alleged to have fought in Iraq and Syria before coming home and plotting their attacks.
TRT World's Simon McGregor-Wood reports.
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