A top Belgian official revealed today that Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam also targeted Brussels, as Europe's most wanted suspect's lawyer launched a furious legal fight to avoid extradition to France.
Abdeslam is held in a high security jail on charges of "terrorist murder" for his role in the November 13 gun and suicide attacks on the French capital, which killed 130 people.
The Belgian-born French citizen, who was caught unarmed 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.
A day after his capture, the 26-year-old was taken to a maximum security prison in the northwestern city of Bruges.
Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders today revealed Abdeslam also targeted the Belgian capital.
Abdeslam told investigators "...He was ready to restart something in Brussels, and it may be the reality because we have found a lot of weapons, heavy weapons, in the first investigations and we have found a new network around him in Brussels," Reynders was quoted in a statement as saying at a panel discussion.
Reynders, speaking in English at the Brussels Forum, an annual US-organised transatlantic conference, said police were still working to track down suspects involved in the attacks in which 130 people died.
"We are sure that for the moment we have found more than 30 people involved in the terrorist attacks in Paris, but we are sure there are others," he said.
Abdeslam's lawyer Sven Mary said his client would fight his extradition to Paris beginning with a legal complaint against a French prosecutor who divulged the details of the first interrogation with the suspect to journalists yesterday.
"I don't understand why a prosecutor in Paris has to communicate at this stage on an investigation in Belgium," Mary told Le Soir newspaper today.
Abdeslam "is worth gold. He is collaborating, he's communicating, he is not using his right to remain silent," Mary said, urging patience.
Paris prosecutor Francois Molins yesterday told reporters Abdeslam had played a "central role" in planning the November attacks, which targeted bars, restaurants and the Bataclan concert hall and were claimed by the Islamic State group (IS).
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.
