Paris attacks: Two suspects charged in Austria

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-37311755

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Two men have been charged in Austria in connection with last November's Paris attacks which killed 130 people.

The state prosecutor in Salzburg told the BBC that the men - Moroccan and Algerian nationals - were suspected of being accomplices of the attackers.

Salah Abdeslam, the only known surviving member of the jihadist team, has appeared in a Paris court for a third time, but again refused to speak.

The co-ordinated attacks were claimed by so-called Islamic State (IS).

'Right to silence'

The state prosecutor in Salzburg told the BBC that one of the suspects was a 26-year-old Moroccan and the other one was an Algerian citizen aged 40.

The pair, who have not been named in keeping with Austrian privacy laws, have been charged with being part of IS. They were reportedly arrested at a refugee centre last December.

They are suspected of helping two other suspects - whom Austria extradited to France this year - with "logistics as well as through gathering information and arranging contacts".

Those two extradited suspects have been identified by a number of media outlets as Algerian-born Adel Haddadi and Muhammad Usman, a Pakistani national.

They are believed to have been part of the same cell that carried out the Paris attacks.

In Paris, Salah Abdeslam again refused to answer questions from French anti-terror judges.

"He exercised his right to silence," Mr Abdeslam's lawyer Frank Berton told reporters.

Mr Abdeslam is believed to be angry about a 24-hour video surveillance of his prison cell in the high-security Fleury-Merogis jail just outside Paris.

In France, judges are responsible for investigating the case and questioning suspects ahead of any trial.

Salah Abdeslam is being investigated over charges of terrorism-related murder and attempted murder.

Arrested in Brussels in March after months on the run, he was transferred to French custody the following month.

His arrest took place just four days before bombings at Brussels airport and metro station, and he has been linked to several of the suspects believed to have carried out those attacks.

Belgian authorities have been accused of failing to connect him and his brother, Brahim Abdeslam, to ringleader Abdelhamid Abaaoud.

Brahim Abdeslam blew himself up on 13 November, while Abaaoud was killed during a police raid in Paris days afterwards.

The Belgian authorities have already admitted making serious blunders in the months leading up to the Paris and Brussels attacks.