Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam wants to leave Belgium 'as quickly as possible'
Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam, who is still in Belgium, wants to leave for France "as quickly as possible" and will not fight extradition, his lawyer told reporters in Brussels on Thursday morning.
This is a reversal from his previous legal battle. After his arrest on Friday, the lawyers defending 26-year-old Abdeslam, a French citizen who grew up in Brussels, had started a legal fight to prevent his extradition to France.
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The French president and families of the 130 victims killed in the Nov. 13 attacks want him to stand trial after being on the run for four months.
Abdeslam's lawyer Sven Mary said on Saturday that any hasty extradition to France would be motivated by a sense of guilt because the attacks were coordinated in Belgium.
"We don't need him in France. We need him in Belgium."
"We don't need him in France. We need him in Belgium," Mary argued.
"Perhaps we should tone down our groveling to compensate for the sense of guilt we feel toward France," Mary said after he and his client met with a Belgian investigating magistrate.
When Channel 4 News asked Mary what Abdeslam said about Tuesday's attacks in Brussels, his lawyer responded that Abdeslam didn't have any response because he didn't know about them.
"He said nothing about the attacks. He is also in isolation," Mary said. "He has neither television nor radio or newspapers."
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Abdeslam's court hearing has been postponed until April 7.
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Blathnaid Healy is the UK Editor at Mashable. She joined the company in October 2014 and is based in the London office. Before Mashable, Blathnaid was Content Manager and COO of WorldIrish, a startup focused on the Irish diaspora. She spent almost five years working at Ireland’s largest media company RTE as a multimedia journalist where she also set up the broadcaster’s first dedicated social media team and project managed output for several high-profile events across web, mobile and social media. Blathnaid has reported from the US, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Romania and, of course, Ireland. And in case you’re wondering, it’s pronounced Blan-id.
