Salah Abdeslam refused to blow himself up, brother says: BFM TV

[April 02, 2016]    PARIS (Reuters) - Salah Abdeslam, the Paris attacks suspect who was arrested in Brussels last month, refused to blow himself up on the day of the attacks, his brother Mohamed told French news channel BFM TV.

Abdeslam, who will be extradited to France, has renewed an offer to cooperate with French authorities investigating the Nov. 13 attacks that killed 130 people, his lawyer said this week.

"There would have been more victims had I done it," Salah Abdeslam told his brother. "Luckily, I couldn't go through with it."

After his arrest in Brussels on March 18, Abdeslam answered some investigators' questions but then exercised his right to silence following the suicide bombings in Brussels on March 22 that killed 32 people.

Investigators believe the attacks in Paris and Brussels were carried out by militants from the same Islamic State network. Link to BFM TV story (in French): http://bit.ly/1X5Bqtz

(Reporting by Mathieu Rosemain. Editing by Jane Merriman)

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