Paris suspect “probably evaded police raid in Brussels this week”

PanARMENIAN.Net - Salah Abdeslam, a prime suspect in November's Islamist attacks in Paris, probably evaded a police raid in Brussels on Tuesday, March 18, Belgian public broadcaster RTBF said on Friday after investigators found his fingerprints at the scene, Reuters reports.

"According to our information, it is more than likely that he is one of the two individuals who escaped during the shootout," RTBF said on its website, referring to Tuesday's raid in which one Islamist gunman was shot dead by a police sniper.

The public prosecutor's office, which is investigating the extensive involvement of Belgians and Brussels-based French nationals in the Nov. 13 Islamic State attacks on the French capital, could not immediately be reached for comment, Reuters says.

Belgium's Belga news agency quoted the prosecutor's office as saying they had found fingerprints of Abdeslam in the apartment police raided in the suburban Brussels borough of Forest on Tuesday while other media said DNA was also found.

Other media were more cautious on the implications of the find, saying it demonstrated that the 26-year-old Brussels-born Frenchman may have visited the apartment at some stage.