There are Two Terrorists on the Run Not One
Police now believe not one but two suspects in the Paris attacks may be on the run, as it emerged that Salah Abdeslam was stopped by police three times before he was able to disappear.
Several eyewitnesses have reported seeing three men inside a black Seat Leon used by the terrorists during gun attacks on bars and restaurants. The only two occupants who have been accounted for are Abdeslam and his brother Ibrahim, who blew himself up outside a café.
Abdeslam became Europe's most wanted man after he slipped out of Paris and was driven back to Belgium by two other men, who have now been arrested.
The two alleged getaway drivers, who are being held on suspicion of making the suicide bombs used in the attacks, have disclosed that they were stopped three times by police on their way back to Belgium, but were allowed to carry on each time.
Hamza Attou, 21, and Mohammed Amri, 27, have reportedly confessed to driving Salah Abdeslam back to Belgium after the attacks.
A car is towed during a police raid in Brussels' Molenbeek district Photo: Getty Images
Police found ammonium nitrate – a fertilizer that can be used to make bombs - and ammunition of the type used in Kalashnikov assault rifles in addresses connected to the men. They insist the chemicals were bought as garden fertilizer.
As the hunt for Salah Abdeslam continued, his brother Mohammed said: “I call on him to turn himself over to the police. The best would be for him to give himself up so that justice can shed all the light on this."
It was Attou and Amri who were allegedly in a VW Golf with Abdeslam when it was stopped by police at Cambrai, near France’s border with Belgium, on Saturday morning, before being allowed to go on their way because none were at that stage on wanted lists.
They have now told police in Belgium they were stopped two further times, but again were allowed to continue, enabling Abdeslam to make his escape.
Attou and Amri were among seven men arrested in Belgium over the weekend, five of whom were later released without charge.
Police continue to raid addresses in Belgium as they investigate the Paris attacks Photo: Reuters
Belgian newspapers suggested they have been charged with 129 “terrorist assassinations” and participation in terrorist activities, though the prosecutor’s office would not confirm this. A total of 129 people died in the co-ordinated attacks on Paris.
Amri reportedly has a 2009 conviction for assault and is married to a Belgian woman called Kim who converted to Islam to marry him.
The two men left the Brussels suburb of Molenbeek at 2am on Saturday after receiving a call from Abdeslam, who said his car had broken down. They picked him up in Barbes, about a mile from the Bataclan concert hall, at 5am and drove him back to Molenbeek.
They deny any knowledge of the massacre, and say Abdeslam said little during the car journey.
“We did not talk much…he was a little stressed,” they are reported as saying.
Amri was the driver of the Golf, according to the Belgian newspaper La Libre, but the vehicle belongs to Attou.
Amri’s solicitor, Xavier Carrette, said the only thing he admits “is having been in France to pick up a friend”.
They were reportedly not the first people approached by Abdeslam for a lift.
Reuters reported that another acquaintance of the Abdeslam brothers, 23-year-old Amir, who works installing shop tills, said a friend had called him on Friday night asking him to drive the 180 miles to Paris to pick up Salah Abdeslam. Amir told him he could not go.
He was told Abdeslam offered to pay for the fuel, but Amir did not want to run up such big mileage on his leased car. "It's incredible," he said of the arrests of the two men who did drive Abdeslam. "It could have been me. ... I had no idea.”
By Gordon Rayner, Henry Samuel in Paris
and Matthew Holehouse in Brussels
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