Brussels attacks: Paris attack suspect Abdeslam goes silent

 

Paris attack suspect Salah Abdeslam refused to speak when asked about Tuesday's attacks in Brussels, Belgian prosecutors say.

They said that Abdeslam, arrested last week in Brussels and initially cooperative, had "exercised his right to silence" and said nothing when interviewed after Tuesday's bombings.
He was seized days before the Brussels attacks, in which 31 people died.
Twelve people were arrested on Thursday and Friday in three countries.
Six were detained in Belgium on Thursday and three on Friday, though several were later released.

Two were held in Germany and one in France, as a plot said to be in its advanced stages was foiled.
Meanwhile Belgian officials named the second suicide bomber in Tuesday's attack at Brussels airport as Najim Laachraoui, and said that his DNA was also found at sites of the November Paris attacks.

                            Laachraoui was only known by the alias Soufiane Kayal until this week

So-called Islamic State (IS) has said it carried out both the Brussels attacks, and the ones in Paris in November.
On Friday it released a video about the Brussels attacks, presenting them as retribution for coalition attacks against IS territory in Iraq and Syria.
Abdeslam was arrested on 18 March in a dramatic operation in central Brussels after apparently hiding in the city for more than four months.
Describing Abdeslam's interrogation since his arrest, the prosecutor's office said he was not interviewed that day as he was receiving hospital treatment - he was wounded in the leg during his arrest.
His first interview was at 08:00 (07:00 GMT) the following day, when investigators went through the main points of the Paris inquiry.
Two interviews with the investigating judge followed, the second of which related to a European arrest warrant issued against him.
On this occasion Abdeslam exercised his right to silence