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Mohamed Bakkali, one of the suspects in the 2015 Paris attacks that left 130 people dead, was extradited to France on Friday and charged with complicity and attempted terrorism, French media reported.
Bakkali, 30, was arrested in Belgium shortly after the November 2015 attacks, in which gunmen hit bars and restaurants in a popular neighborhood of Paris, as well as the Bataclan concert venue and the national stadium.
Bakkali has been kept in custody since then.
On Friday, Belgian authorities released him to their French counterparts but on the condition that any sentence he served would be in Belgium.
French authorities have charged him with associating with terrorists and complicity in the November 2015 killings, AFP news agency reported.
French lawyer Mehana Mouhou (2nd L), who represents some of the victims of the November 2015 attacks in Paris, stands with Bley Mokono (C), who was injured in the attack, ahead of the trial of Jawad Bendaoud, at the courthouse of Paris, January 24, 2018.
Among other things, Bakkali is accused of renting a car that was seen near three safe houses where the Paris attacks were prepared.
He has also been charged in connection with another attempted attack, on a Thalys train between Amsterdam and Paris in August 2015, which passengers – including two US off-duty soldiers – managed to foil by taking down the heavily armed gunman.
Both attacks revealed close connections between ISIL cells in France and Belgium.
Bakkali remains in custody for now. Another suspect in the November 2015 attacks is already on trial in Paris, accused of sheltering two of the attackers in his Paris flat after the rampage. Salah Abdeslam, the only surviving gunman among the 10 who carried out the attacks, is also scheduled to go to court in Belgium next month.
A total 130 people were killed and over 350 injured in coordinated gun and bomb attacks by jihadists in Paris on November 13, 2015. The attack shocked France and the world, coming months after another attack on the offices of satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket in January 2015 that killed 17 people.
(CGTN)
