The French national suspected of having shot three people dead in the Jewish Museum in Brussels last month refused on Wednesday to be extradited from France to Belgium, prosecutors and his lawyer said. Mehdi Nemmouche, 29, who has been in police custody since his arrest on Friday in the southern city of Marseille, refused to leave France when presented with a European arrest warrant during a court hearing in Versailles outside Paris. An Israeli couple and a French woman were killed in the attack in the Belgian capital. Prosecutors say the repeat offender, who they say spent most of 2013 fighting in Syria with Islamist rebels, is being held under anti-terror laws on suspicion of murder, attempted murder and possession of weapons in relation to the May 24 attack. "We would like him to be judged under French jurisdiction," Nemmouche's lawyer, Apolin Pepiezep, told iTele. "Nothing today proves that Mehdi Nemmouche is the culprit." The EU-wide system of arrest warrants, in effect since 2004, is designed to ensure faster and simpler extraditions. The European Commission says an extradition within EU member states takes on average 48 days if the suspect does not agree to it. When arrested at a Marseille bus terminal, Nemmouche was carrying a Kalashnikov rifle, another gun and ammunition similar to that used in the shooting, prosecutors said. His lawyer said Nemmouche told police he had stolen them from a car in Brussels. Nemmouche, who is from Roubaix, a city near the Belgian border, has already served five different sentences in French jails, where he became a radical Islamist, prosecutors have said. Meanwhile, the French weekly Le Nouvel Observateur reported Tuesday that German authorities had tipped off their French counterparts about Nemmouche, who they considered a threat. They also shared information on Nemmouche being spotted at the Frankfurt Airport on March 18th, having arrived on a flight from Bangkok. As a result of a mix-up, the suspect's name was not properly disseminated and French law-enforcement agencies increased their surveillance on his uncle, Ammar Nemmouche, who attended an Islamic institution in Saudi Arabia before becoming a spiritual leader in Tourcoing, which is close to Roubaix. Authorities were worried about Ammar potentially becoming a Salafist. EU Counterterrorism Coordinator Gilles de Kerchove told Agence France-Presse earlier this week that EU Europe could expect additional "small-scale attacks" like the Brussels incident. According to the news agency, Kerchove said he did not believe Nemmouche acted alone. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with French President Francois Hollande on Tuesday, thanking him for the arrest of Nemmouche. According to the Prime Minister's Office, Netanyahu said he "appreciates the determined action on the part of the French security forces." Netanyahu commended Hollande on his "persistent and resolved" stance against anti-Semitism.
Credit: Reuters
The suspect has another court appearance on Thursday. If he refuses extradition again, he can appeal the prosecutor's demand to a higher court, but this would likely only delay rather than block his transfer to Brussels, legal sources said.
