Belgium says captured Paris suspect may have planned more attacks

BRUSSELS The lawyer defending the prime surviving suspect for the Nov. 13 Paris attacks said on Sunday he would sue a French prosecutor for divulging Salah Abdeslam's private admission that he planned to blow himself up with fellow Islamic State militants.


Speaking two days after Abdeslam was captured during a police raid in Brussels, his lawyer Sven Mary accused the lead French investigator of violating judicial confidentiality by quoting Abdeslam's statement to a magistrate in Brussels at a news conference in Paris on Saturday evening.


"I cannot let this pass," Mary told Belgian state broadcaster RTBF. Mary's office was not immediately available for comment, but RTBF said he would start legal proceedings on Monday.


At the Paris news conference, Francois Molins read from Abdeslam's statement, saying: ""He wanted to blow himself up at the Stade de France and, I quote, backed out."


Molins also told reporters in Paris that people should treat with caution initial statements by the 26-year-old French national.


The gun and bomb attacks on a sports stadium, bars and a concert hall killed 130 people and was the deadliest militant assault in Europe since 2004.


Abdeslam, who was caught by police in Brussels after an intense, four-month manhunt, spent his first night in a high security prison in the northwestern Belgian city of Bruges.


He is due to appear before a judge in Brussels on Wednesday, and RTBF quoted his lawyer as saying he will not seek Abdeslam's freedom from police custody.


(Reporting by Robin Emmott in Brussels and John Irish in Paris; Editing by Hugh Lawson)




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