SALAH ABDESLAM, A surviving member of the group that carried out the Paris attacks in November that killed 130 people, will be questioned by French investigators for the first time on Friday.
For months, Abdeslam was the most wanted fugitive in Europe until he was tracked down and arrested on 18 March in the Brussels neighbourhood of Molenbeek where he grew up.
He has no arrived at a court in Paris to face questioning from anti-terror judges.
Transferred to France under high security on 27 April, he has been held at Fleury-Merogis prison, southeast of Paris.
A childhood friend of suspected ringleader Abdelhamid Abaaoud, Abdeslam is thought to have played a key role both on the night of the attacks on 13 November, and in their preparation.
Two others have been arrested in France in connection with the attacks carried out by the Islamic State group but they are considered secondary participants.
Abdeslam, 26, is known to have dropped off the three suicide bombers who blew themselves up outside the Stade de France national stadium in northern Paris.
He is said to have backed out of the suicide bombing himself. An abandoned explosives vest was found in a southern Paris district close to where Abdeslam was placed by mobile phone data on the night of the attacks.
CCTV pictures from filling stations showed him fleeing back to Belgium after two friends came to pick him up.
In the build-up to the attacks, he is known to have rented the cars and hideouts used by the gang.
He also transported several other jihadists around Europe in the preceding months, including Najim Laachraoui, the suspected bombmaker for the November attacks who was himself killed in a suicide bombing in Brussels on 22 March.
The coordinated attacks in Brussels that day also struck a metro station, killing 32 people overall.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say