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Arrested in Belgium, Suspect in Paris Attacks Plans to Fight Extradition Paris Suspect Claims He ‘Backed Out’ of Stadium Bombing, Prosecutor Says
(about 3 hours later)
BRUSSELS — Salah Abdeslam, believed to be the sole surviving participant of the November attacks in Paris, will fight extradition to France, his lawyer said on Saturday. BRUSSELS — Salah Abdeslam, believed to be the only direct participant in the November attacks in Paris who is still alive, told investigators on Saturday after being captured a day earlier that he had wanted to detonate his suicide vest at the Stade de France soccer stadium on the night of the attacks, but “backed out,” said the lead terrorism prosecutor in France.
The Belgian lawyer, Sven Mary, spoke a day after Mr. Abdeslam’s arrest in Molenbeek, the section of Brussels in which he grew up and where several of the Paris attackers were from. Three of the attackers detonated their vests there, but killed just one person and themselves on Nov. 13 during a match between France and Germany.  
Mr. Abdeslam left Saint-Pierre University Hospital on Saturday morning, as did a suspected accomplice who was also arrested during police raids on Friday, according to Yvan Mayeur, the mayor of Brussels.  The prosecutor, François Molins, warned against putting too much stock in anything Mr. Abdeslam said at such an early stage. “These first statements leave unanswered a whole series of questions that Salah Abdeslam will have to answer,” he said.
Mr. Abdeslam was shot in a leg on Friday afternoon during a police raid in the Belgian capital, several days after his fingerprints were found in an apartment in the city’s Forest section.  At his first hearing before a judge in Belgium on Saturday, Mr. Abdeslam made it clear that he would fight his extradition to France, his lawyer, Sven Mary, said.
“He is collaborating with the Belgian justice system,” Mr. Mary told reporters in Brussels after briefly meeting with Mr. Abdeslam. But he added, “With regards to the European arrest warrant coming from France, at this stage we are refusing extradition.” Mr. Mary spoke to journalists after he and Mr. Abdeslam met with a Belgian magistrate who was to decide whether to issue a formal arrest warrant against Mr. Abdeslam, who is accused of playing a key role in the Nov. 13 attacks on a concert, cafes and a stadium that killed 130 people.
European arrest warrants are the product of a 2002 European Union agreement that removes formalities and speeds up extradition. The procedures became a purely judicial matter dealt with by national judicial authorities instead of a political one handled by governments. Later Saturday, the magistrate issued the warrant, the federal prosecutor’s office said. 
Mr. Abdeslam’s decision is expected to delay but not block his extradition to France, where many families of the 130 people killed in Paris and Saint-Denis on the night of Nov. 13 are eager to see him stand trial. Mr. Abdeslam, 27, was captured with another person suspected of being an accomplice, and both were taken to a hospital in Brussels. They were discharged early Saturday, Yvan Mayeur, the Brussels mayor, announced in a Twitter message.
Samia Maktouf, a lawyer representing victims of the attacks, told France Info radio on Saturday that she was expecting a quick extradition, “so that the family and victims can put a face on the one who orchestrated these attacks.” Mr. Abdeslam, a French citizen, is subject to a European arrest warrant issued by France. His seizure in the Brussels neighborhood of Molenbeek after he spent four months on the run brought relief to people who had seen his wanted poster all over two countries for months.
She said that Mr. Abdeslam’s decision would probably delay extradition by at least two months, and that a trial would likely be years away. Bernard Cazeneuve, the French interior minister, said Saturday that he hoped Mr. Abdeslam could be delivered to France to face justice. He spoke after President François Hollande held an emergency security meeting in Paris.
Mr. Abdeslam, 26, is a Belgian-born French citizen of Moroccan ancestry who is thought to have driven a team of terrorists to the French national soccer stadium outside Paris on Nov. 13. Mr. Hollande has warned that more arrests will come as the authorities try to dismantle a network involved in the attacks that is much larger than originally suspected. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the Paris attacks.
He fled to Brussels early on Nov. 14, and it is still unclear what role exactly he played in the attacks and whether he was meant to carry out another suicide bombing in Paris. There are worries in Belgium that more attacks were being planned in part because in one of the Brussels apartments where Mr. Abdeslam’s fingerprints were found earlier in the week, the police found a flag of the Islamic State as well as a large amount of ammunition. The flag is frequently used as a prop in martyrdom videos that are filmed by the participants in attacks before they carry out the operation.
After a national security meeting convened by President François Hollande in Paris, Bernard Cazeneuve, France’s interior minister, said Mr. Abdeslam would have to face a French court. Mr. Cazeneuve called Mr. Abdeslam’s arrest a “major blow” to the Islamic State group in Europe, but warned that the threat of new attacks remained “extremely high.”
“The government is determined to bring everything to light,” Mr. Cazeneuve said. “This is an important blow against the Daesh terrorist organization in Europe,” he added, using an Arab term for the Islamic State group, which is also known as ISIS or ISIL. Belgium’s prime minister, Charles Michel, also said that “the fight is not over,” and the Belgian government announced that the nation’s terrorism alert level would remain unchanged at three on a four-point scale.
On Saturday, the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office announced that an investigating judge had issued an arrest warrant against Mr. Abdeslam and that he had been charged with “participation in terrorist murder and participation in the activities of a terrorist organization.” A Belgian federal prosecutor, Eric Van der Sypt, said that with an arrest warrant, Mr. Abdeslam would have to appear before a pretrial court, which will decide whether he stays in jail for up to an additional month.
A man using the pseudonyms Monir Ahmed Alaaj and Amine Choukry, who was also wounded by police on Friday and is believed to be Mr. Abdeslam’s accomplice, was served an arrest warrant on the same charges, the federal prosecutor’s office said.
A third man, identified only as Abid A., was charged with “participation in the activities of a terrorist organization and hiding of criminals.” A member of that man’s family, which is suspected of having sheltered Mr. Abdeslam, was charged with hiding criminals but was not detained. Another relative was released without charges.