The sole survivor of the terror squad that killed 130 people in Paris in 2015 has been transported from France to Belgium, where he will face charges for assaults there in 2016.
A French judge sentenced Abdeslam to life in prison last month for his role in the 2015 assaults on the Bataclan theater and other Paris locales.
According to a source close to the case, the 32-year-old Frenchman of Moroccan origin who used to live in Brussels was transported from Fleury-Merogis jail south of Paris to Belgium’s Ittre prison on Wednesday.
He will be kept in Belgium until his trial on October 10th.
Abdeslam is being tried there for his role in the March 2016 attacks carried out by the same group that carried out the Paris attacks.
The Islamic State armed organization claimed responsibility for the assaults in Belgium, which killed 32 people at the national airport and in a Brussels metro station.
The trial in Belgium might go until the summer of 2023.
Abdeslam was apprehended by police in Brussels days before the Belgium attacks and was handed over to France to stand trial for the 2015 Paris attacks.
On June 29, he was sentenced to life in jail with no prospect of parole after 30 years, the harshest punishment permitted under French law.
Abdeslam did not file an appeal following the trial, which was the largest in modern French history.
He will stand trial in Belgium alongside five of his co-defendants, including Mohamed Abrini, the “man in the hat” who abandoned his explosives cart at the Brussels airport before fleeing.
Oussama Atar, the alleged mastermind of the Paris attacks, will also be tried in absentia because he is assumed dead in Syria.
Source: RFI