BRUSSELS (AP) — A closely watched trial in Belgium involving the only surviving suspect in the 2015 attacks in Paris has been postponed to give a newly appointed lawyer time to prepare.
Journalists and others pass a police checkpoint ahead of a hearing at the Brussels Justice Palace in Brussels on Monday, Dec. 18, 2017. The hearing regards the postponement of a trial against Salah Abdeslam and Soufiane Ayari who took part in a shooting incident in Vorst, Belgium on March 15, 2016. The incident took place when six members of a Franco-Belgian research team investigating the attacks in Paris were conducting a search in an allegedly empty safe house and were attacked. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)
Salah Abdeslam’s trial in Brussels was set to begin Monday but the defense requested a delay. Lawyer Sven Mary told reporters outside the courthouse that the new start date for the trial is Feb. 5.
He also confirmed that he will be seeing Abdeslam in France to prepare his defense.
Belgian authorities accuse Abdeslam of attempted murder for a shooting in 2016 in Brussels, four months after he fled the scene of the Paris attacks in November 2015.
Abdeslam, currently in a French prison, is also expected to face trial in France in the coming years for the Paris attacks, which killed 130 people and were claimed by the Islamic State group.
Maryse Alie, a lawyer for police officers involved in the Brussels shooting, said that she hopes that Abdeslam will use the court appearance to speak for the first time.
“He (Abdeslam) never spoke until now so we hope that as he expressed a wish to come here he will be able to talk and to explain certain things,” Alie said.
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