Bar in Paris attacks re-opens after ‘nightmare’
Bar in Paris attacks re-opens after ‘nightmare’
One of the suspected ringleaders of the Paris attacks in November, Salah Abdeslam, travelled to Hungary where he “recruited a team” from unregistered migrants passing through, senior Hungarian government officials have said.
“I can confirm that one of the main organisers of the Paris terror attacks was in Budapest,” Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s chief of staff Janos Lazar told a regular news conference in Budapest on Thursday.
Mr Lazar did not name the man or say when he was in Hungary, nor whether those he picked up went on to take part in the November 13 atrocities in the French capital claimed by ISIS.
Speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, a government source later confirmed that the man was in fact Abdeslam, a key suspect in the Paris attacks who is currently on the run.
Mr Lazar meanwhile said the suspect had been in Keleti station in Budapest, “recruiting a team from immigrants who had refused to register with Hungarian authorities”, referring to migrants. He then “left the country together with them,” Mr Lazar added.
Until mid-September, when Hungary sealed its border with Serbia, thousands of migrants and refugees spent days or even weeks in makeshift camps at Keleti station on their way to northern Europe after travelling up through the Balkans.
A French source familiar with the investigation said that a car rented by Abdeslam is known to have been in Hungary on September 17.
A Paris bar where five people were killed in the jihadist attacks became the first to re-open Friday, with customers defiantly returning to the site where black-clad gunmen sprayed bullets at terrified evening drinkers.
A La Bonne Biere opened for business on a bright and sunny morning in the east of the capital and the first customers pushed through the doors as if everything was — almost — normal.
The manager, Audrey Bily, came out to address a crowd of journalists and television cameras, standing near to where a carload of gunmen had pulled up on November 13 and spread terror through the trendy district as people enjoyed an end-of-week drink.
