A prime suspect in last year’s attacks in Paris faced questioning on Saturday just one day after his arrest.
Salah Abdeslam was arrested on Friday in Brussels, according to French officials, after investigators found his fingerprints during a raid on an apartment earlier this week.
Abdeslam is cooperating with Belgian authorities and answered questions on Saturday, Reuters reported, including admitting that he was in Paris on Nov. 13, when a string of violence at venues throughout the city left more than 130 dead.
Abdeslam has been charged with “participation in terrorist murder,” according to the report. He was shot in the leg during his capture, so he met with investigators in the hospital, but will be moved to a high-security jail while his legal case continues.
His lawyer said he will fight his extradition to France, but legal experts said his challenge was unlikely to succeed.
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, predicted that questioning Abdeslam could yield intelligence that could prove valuable in other aspects of the fight against the Islamic State, including how the group encrypts its communications and how the core group in Iraq and Syria coordinates with those planning Western attacks.
