Mohamed Abrini, the man suspected of last year’s Brussels airport attack, has been placed under formal investigation in France over the 2015 Paris terror attacks, his lawyers say.
He was handed over to French authorities for a day so he could be charged.
Mohamed Abrini was arrested last April in Brussels.
The gun and bomb attacks in Paris on November 13, 2015, killed 130 people.
Mohamed Abrini was spotted in a car with key Paris suspect Salah Abdeslam when it stopped at a petrol station in Ressons two days before the attacks on the French capital.
His fingerprints and DNA were found in two “safe houses” in Brussels, as well as in a car used during the Paris attacks.
Following his arrest, Mohamed Abrini also admitted picking up Salah Abdeslam after the attacks and driving him back to Belgium.
He was driven to Paris from Belgium in a heavily armed convoy so the case against him could be formally launched, BFMTV reported.
Mohamed Abrini was not asked any questions during his court appearance in front of six judges, his lawyer Emmanuel Pierrat said in a statement.
However, the lawyer said his client was in Belgium when the attacks in Paris were carried out.
Emmanuel Pierrat also said the fact that Mohamed Abrini was being investigated in both France and Belgium over the Paris attacks could lead to legal complications.
Mohamed Abrini is also under investigation in Belgium over the bomb attack on Brussels Zaventem Airport, which along with an attack on a metro station in the city killed 32 people.
Both the Paris and Brussels attacks were claimed by ISIS.
Mohamed Abrini, who was arrested in Belgium on April 8, has admitted being the “man in the hat” seen with the suicide bombers at Brussels airport, prosecutors say.
Belgian prosecutors say Mohamed Abrini told investigators that he was at the scene of the March 22 bombings.
Mohamed Abrini, 31, is also wanted in connection with the attacks in Paris that killed 130 people last November.
He is one of six men arrested in Brussels on April 8. Four have been charged with terror offences.
The attacks at Zaventem airport and a metro station in Brussels left 32 people dead.
Officials believe those who carried out the Brussels and the Paris attacks were part of the same network backed by ISIS.
Mohamed Abrini was placed in detention by the Belgian judge in charge on the investigation into the Paris attacks. His fingerprints and DNA were found in two “safe houses” in Brussels, as well as in a car used during the Paris attacks, investigators say.
Mohamed Abrini – the key remaining suspect in November’s Paris terror attacks – has been arrested, Belgian media say.
He is also likely to be the “man in the hat” seen on CCTV before the blasts in the Brussels airport departure hall on March 22, sources cited in Belgian media say.
Belgian prosecutors confirmed that several arrests had been made in connection with the Brussels attacks.
The attacks on the Brussels airport and a metro station left 32 dead.
The gun and bomb attacks in Paris on November 13 killed 130 people.
Although the Belgian federal prosecutor confirmed that “there have been several arrests in the course of the day in connection with the attacks on the airport and metro”, they would give no further details.
Local media reports suggest that Mohamed Abrini, on the run for five months, was arrested in the Anderlecht district of Brussels.
The Associated Press quoted French police as saying that Mohamed Abrini was one of the arrested men. He had not been directly linked to the Brussels attacks until today.
Some media say that one of the other men arrested is suspected of helping suicide bomber Khalid el-Bakraoui at the Maelbeek metro station, but this has not been confirmed.
On April 7, Belgian authorities had released new video footage of the “man in the hat”, appealing for the public’s help in finding him.
The individual in the footage was seen beside the two suicide bombers at Brussels airport. He left the airport shortly before the blasts.
Mohamed Abrini, 31, a Belgian national of Moroccan origin, is believed to have been filmed at a petrol station with Salah Abdeslam, another arrested Paris attacks suspect, two days before the attacks there.
He and brothers Salah and Brahim Abdeslam were all childhood friends from Brussels.
Mohamed Abrini is believed to have driven twice with the brothers from Belgium to Paris and back on November 10 and 11.
Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected mastermind of the Paris attacks, was near the Bataclan concert hall during a siege there, French prosecutors say.
Prosecutor Francois Molins said mobile phone data also showed Abdelhamid Abaaoud returned to cafes and restaurants targeted in the attacks.
France’s general prosecutor added there was evidence that Abdelhamid Abaaoud was planning an attack on Paris’s La Defense business district.
Meanwhile an arrest warrant was issued in Belgium for a man named Mohamed Abrini over the attacks.
Francois Molins gave more details of the raid in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis in which Abdelhamid Abaaoud was killed.
As well as Abdelhamid Abaaoud and his cousin Hasna Ait Boulahcen, a third unidentified man died in that raid. Francois Molins said it is believed he was the third attacker in the team that attacked bars and restaurants in the 10th and 11th arrondissements.
Jawad Bendaoud, the man who lent the Saint-Denis flat, has been put under formal investigation for “criminal conspiracy in connection with a terrorist enterprise”.
Also on November 24, Belgian prosecutors said that two days before the attacks, new suspect Mohamed Abrini was seen driving a car with suspect Salah Abdeslam at a petrol station on the highway to Paris.
Mohamed Abrini is described as “dangerous and probably armed”.
Salah Abdeslam is currently the subject of an international manhunt after the attacks which killed 130 people.
The Renault Clio that Mohamed Abrini was seen driving was later used in the attacks, prosecutors say.
Police say he should not be approached by the public.
Belgian prosecutors also said on November 24 that they have also partially identified two other men who have been taken into custody.
They are under suspicion – in the words of a statement – of “participating in the activities of a terrorist group”, and “acts of terrorist murder”.
The men, named as Ali O and Lazez A, are both from the Brussels district of Molenbeek, and both will appear separately in court during the course of this week.
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