Paris suspect charged over deadly Brussels shootout

Key Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam was charged Thursday with attempted murder over a deadly shootout with the police in Brussels a week before the suicide bombings in the Belgian capital, his lawyer and prosecutors said.

An Algerian Islamist suspect was killed and four police officers were wounded in the March 15 shooutout, which led to Abdeslam’s arrest three days later after a massive European manhunt.

“He has been charged with attempted murder either alone or jointly” over the gunbattle at an apartment in the southern Forest district of Brussels, lawyer Sven Mary said.

Belgian prosecutors later confirmed the charges against Abdeslam, 26, who is currently awaiting extradition to France.

“Salah Abdeslam has been charged today with attempted murder in the case opened after the gunbattle in Forest during which several police officers were injured,” the federal prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

“The judge did not make an order for his arrest given that he is already in detention over the attacks in Paris.”

Abdeslam, a French national of Moroccan origin who grew up in Belgium, is due to be transferred to France in coming days over the November 13 Paris attacks, in which he is believed to be the last surviving member of the terror squad that killed 130 people.