Suspect in Paris Attacks Extradited to France From Belgium

Salah Abdeslam, suspected of playing a major part in November's attacks in Paris by extremist militants in which 130 people were killed, has been extradited to France from Belgium, prosecutors in both countries said on Wednesday.

Abdeslam, 26, was Europe's most wanted fugitive until his capture in Brussels on March 18 after a four-month manhunt. He was due to appear before French judges later on Wednesday.

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His capture in March came four days before separate suicide bomb attacks by Islamist militants at Brussels international airport and on a metro train which killed 32 people.

Investigators say Abdeslam told them he had arranged logistics for the Nov. 13 bombing and shooting attacks in Paris and had planned to blow himself up at a sports stadium there but backed out at the last minute.

He is suspected of having rented two cars used to transport the attackers to, and around, the French capital.

Abdeslam's elder brother Brahim, with whom he used to run a bar in the Brussels district of Molenbeek, was among the Paris suicide bombers, blowing himself up at a cafe.

Abdeslam had been held in a prison in the Belgian town of Bruges. Last week he was charged in Belgium over a shootout with police in an apartment in southern Brussels in which his fingerprints were found days before his eventual arrest.