Paris terror suspect
Salah Abdeslam refused to answer questions yesterday at his trial over a gun battle with police following the massacre of 130 victims. Abdeslam, 28, was ordered to show respect to the court when he would not stand and ignored lawyers.
But he told the judge: “I’m not afraid of you.
“I’m staying silent, it’s my right, it doesn’t make me a criminal.”
Abdeslam was flanked by four special forces police officers wearing balaclavas and brandishing machine guns.
Another 200 armed police patrolled the streets surrounding the court in the Belgian capital, Brussels.
He appeared alongside Tunisian Sofien Ayari, 24. Both men are accused of attempted murder and illegal possession of weapons.
Abdeslam is said to have fled from Paris after the deadly attacks on the Bataclan concert hall, restaurants and a football stadium in November 2015.
He was arrested four months later in Brussels after a shoot-out when police raided a flat in Brussels’ Islamic Molenbeek district.
Both men face a maximum prison term of 20 years.
Abdeslam, whose long hair and beard contrast with his clean-cut look on police appeal photographs when he was on the run, will face a trial in Paris next year.
The French national of Moroccan descent complained he was tired and successfully demanded the right not to be photographed in court.
He also demanded prosecutor Kathleen Grosjean base her case on “forensic and tangible evidence”, and told her not to “swagger about to satisfy public opinion”.
Abdeslam said: “I am accused, so I am here.
“I place my trust in Allah.
“What I see is Muslims being judged and treated in the worst possible way.”
Abdeslam is believed to be the only survivor of the gang suspected of the Paris atrocities.
His elder brother Brahim, 31, was among the nine attackers, blowing himself up inside a cafe.
French prosecutors believe the younger brother helped organise the carnage and ferried former Syrian Islamic State fighters around Europe.
The former drug dealer tried and failed to detonate a suicide bomb, then went on the run, returning to Belgium, where he was eventually arrested.
Abdeslam is also suspected of involvement in another IS atrocity four days after his arrest, when 32 people were killed in suicide attacks on Brussels airport and a train station.