INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Sofiane Ayari, an accomplice of Paris attacks escorted by police officers inside court room.
A Belgian judge has charged an accomplice of Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam with a
terror offence linked to the March 2016 Brussels suicide bombings, prosecutors said Friday.Tunisian Sofiane Ayari, who along with Abdeslam
was jailed in April for opening fire on police in Brussels days before the bombings, was charged late Thursday "with participation in the
activities of a terrorist organisation," the federal prosecutor's office said.It said an investigating judge charged Ayari, 24, "in
connection with the investigation after the terrorist attacks in Brussels and Zaventem" on March 22, 2016, which left 32 people dead and
wounded hundreds.The ISIS claimed the bombings
A Brussels court on April 23 sentenced Ayari and Abdeslam to 20 years in prison for trying to kill police officers during a gunbattle in
Brussels that led to their capture.Four police officers were wounded in the March 15 gun fight, four months after the November 2015 Paris
attacks, and days before suicide bombings in Brussels as a wave of ISIS-inspired terror swept Europe.Abdeslam is the sole surviving suspect
in the Paris attacks.Ayari is being held in a Belgian prison.Neither Abdeslam, 28, a Belgian-born French national, nor Ayari, a 24-year-old
Tunisian citizen, was in court to hear the verdict in April.Abdeslam is being held in jail in France pending a separate trial over the Paris
attacks, claimed by the ISIS jihadist group, in which 130 people died.(This story has not been edited by TheIndianSubcontinent staff and is
auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
