Paris suspect Salah will fight extradition to France: Lawyer

Abdeslam, who was caught after being shot in the leg during a Friday police raid in Brussels, told interrogators he had planned to blow himself up at the Stade de France stadium in Paris but had backed out at the last minute. 

The 26-year-old spent four months as Europe’s most wanted man for his role in organising the November 13 gun and suicide attacks on the French capital, which killed 130 people. 

A day after he was caught, Abdeslam was charged with terrorist murder and participating in a terror group before being taken to a maximum security prison in the north western city of Bruges. He is being held in the prison’s “individual and special safety” wing which was built in 2008 for people who pose an escape risk, a spokeswoman said. 

Although he was cooperating with the authorities, he would fight against plans to transfer him to France, his lawyer Sven Mary said. Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said his brother Brahim blew himself up in a restaurant in the east of the French capital, and Molins said Abdeslam had planned to do the same at the Stade de France before changing his mind. 

Investigators believe Abdeslam rented rooms in the Paris area to be used by the attackers and a car, which he used to drive them to the Stade de France before heading to the 18th arrondissement in the north of the capital. Days after the attacks, an explosives-filled suicide vest was found in Paris in an area where mobile phone signals indicated Abdeslam had been.