Suspected Paris shooter and ISIS terrorist Salah Abdeslam is believed to have fled to Syria, a French intelligence source close to the case told CNN Monday.
French security officials have been looking for Abdeslam since the deadly November 13 attacks in Paris in which 130 people were killed.
Though police have not given details on exactly what role Abdeslam played in the attacks, Paris Prosecutor Francois Molins said he may have driven suicide bombers to Stade de France before heading to another part of Paris. Later that night, he was driven to Belgium.
He was last spotted in a suburb of Brussels after a man by the name of Ali Oulkadi said that he picked up a friend, accompanied by Abdeslam, from the subway, one day after the attacks. Oulkadi’s lawyer, Olivier Martins, said his client did not realize Abdeslam was one of the attackers because he was wearing a cap.
During the ride, Abdeslam allegedly hinted he had a sinister link to the Paris attacks. “In the car, Salah told him that his brother, Brahim, had killed people in Paris and had blown himself up,” Martins said. “For my client, a childhood friend of the two brothers, it was a shock, He could not understand it and could not think clearly.”
Abdeslam’s whereabouts have been unknown since November 14, though a raid was carried out in northern Germany where police received a lead that Abdeslam might be at an address in the area of Minden and Luebbecke in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The raid proved fruitless.
Prior to the terror attacks, 26-year-old Abdeslam did not have a criminal record, aside from a February offense when he, along with his brother and a third man, were stopped near the Belgian border during a routine check when he was fined 70 euros ($75) for possession of “soft drugs,” meaning either cannabis or hashish, while driving back to Belgium.
