"What counts and what matters for us as his lawyers is simply that
he gets a fair trial, that he is sentenced for things he did and not
things that he didn't do. That's vital because he is the sole survivor,"
he told BFM TV.
Suspect in Paris attacks extradited to France from Belgium(India)
Salah Abdeslam, suspected of playing a major part in November's attacks in Paris by Islamist militants in which 130 people were killed, has been extradited to France from Belgium, prosecutors in both countries said on Wednesday.
Abdeslam, 26, was Europe's most wanted fugitive until his capture in Brussels on March 18 after a four-month manhunt. He was due to appear before French judges later on Wednesday.
"Salah Abdeslam has been handed over to the French authorities this morning," Belgium's federal prosecutors said in a statement.
His
capture in March came four days before separate suicide bomb attacks by
Islamist militants at Brussels international airport and on a metro
train which killed 32 people.
Frank Berton, a
high-profile French criminal lawyer, said he would lead Abdeslam's
defence and had visited his client for more than two hours last week in
his prison cell in Belgium along with Abdeslam's Belgian lawyer, Sven
Mary.
Investigators say Abdeslam told them he had
arranged logistics for the Nov. 13 bombing and shooting attacks in Paris
and had planned to blow himself up at a sports stadium there but backed
out at the last minute.
He is suspected of having rented two cars used to transport the attackers to, and around, the French capital.
"He told me naturally that he has things to say and he will say them. He wants to talk," Berton said.
"What
counts and what matters for us as his lawyers is simply that he gets a
fair trial, that he is sentenced for things he did and not things that
he didn't do. That's vital because he is the sole survivor," he told BFM TV.
Abdeslam's
elder brother Brahim, with whom he used to run a bar in the Brussels
district of Molenbeek, was among the Paris suicide bombers, blowing
himself up at a cafe.
Salah may have been the 10th
man referred to in an Islamic State claim of responsibility. Police
found one abandoned suicide vest in a Paris suburb.
Abdeslam
had been held in a prison in the Belgian town of Bruges. Last week he
was charged in Belgium over a shootout with police in an apartment in
southern Brussels in which his finger prints were found days before his
eventual arrest.
Belgian police have arrested a
number of Abdeslam's associates, including Mohamed Abrini, wanted over
the Paris attacks and also a suspected Brussels attacker.
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