The only surviving suspected member of the jihadi group that carried out the November 2015 Paris attacks has refused to answer questions at the start of his trial in Belgium on separate terrorism charges.
Salah Abdeslam stands accused of the attempted murder of police officers after a shootout in Brussels shortly before his arrest in March 2016.
Tight security surrounded the start of the trial of the 28-year-old, who was transferred overnight from a jail near Paris and arrived in Belgium in a convoy of police vehicles.
Abdeslam has declined to to speak to investigators since his arrest in March 2016, prompting his French and Belgian lawyers to resign in frustration, saying his silence made any defence impossible. He immediately signalled his defiance on Monday by refusing to stand when asked by the judge and saying he would not cooperate.
“I do not wish to answer any questions,” Abdeslam, bearded and wearing a long-sleeved white polo shirt, said when the presiding judge, Marie-France Keutgen, asked him to confirm his identity. “My silence does not make me a criminal, it is my defence.
Abdeslam claimed that the judicial process was biased against Muslims, who he said were treated in a “pitiless” manner with no presumption of innocence. “Judge me, do what you want to do, I place my confidence in Allah. I have not fear of you,” he told Keutgen. The judge told the court that Abdeslam has also refused to have photos or video taken of him during the four-day trial in Brussels
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