Germany extradites Bosnian linked to Paris attacks to Belgium

BERLIN, Germany – Germany on Monday, July 29, extradited to Belgium a Bosnian man wanted in connection with the 2015 jihadist attacks in Paris, prosecutors said.

The unnamed 39-year-old suspected of having procured weapons for the attackers “was extradited this morning,” Naumburg prosecution service spokesman Klaus Tewes told Agence France-Presse.

The synchronized shooting and suicide attacks by Islamic State (IS, formerly known as ISIS or the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq) gunmen in Paris on the Bataclan concert hall, national stadium and several cafes killed a total of 130 people.

German authorities had last month announced the man’s arrest on the night of June 19-20 on a European arrest warrant issued by the Belgian authorities.

He was accused “of abetting a terrorist organization linked to the terror attacks, including on the Bataclan concert hall, on November 13, 2015 in Paris.”

The German authorities said then that he had been targeted in a separate investigation against two Bosnian citizens on suspicion of violating military weapons control laws.

The Islamic State group, which then controlled vast territory across Syria and Iraq, claimed responsibility for the attacks in the French capital, which were allegedly coordinated from Brussels.

ISIS also claimed responsibility for the suicide bombings that killed 32 people and wounded hundreds of others in the Belgian capital in March 2016.

The same Brussels cell is believed to have helped organize and carry out both terror attacks. – Rappler.com