Paris attacks suspect on trial in Belgium

The only surviving member of the Islamic State cell that attacked Paris in November 2015 has appeared in public for the first time since his arrest nearly two years ago.

Salah Abdeslam is going on trial in his hometown of Brussels on charges of attempted murder over a police shootout from which he fled.

The man who covered his getaway with a spray of automatic gunfire died.

Abdeslam’s escape was short-lived – he was captured on March 18 2016, in the same neighbourhood where he and many of his Islamic State fighter colleagues grew up.

Abdeslam arrived in the Belgian capital on Monday morning after being transferred from a prison in France.

Security was high at the Palace of Justice in Brussels, with armed guards and multiple checkpoints leading to the courtroom where he is to appear.

Abdeslam has refused to speak to investigators in France about the attack there that killed 130 people. Days after his capture, extremists struck in Brussels. In total, 162 people died in the two attacks.

The trial relates to the 2016 shooting in Brussels, some four months after the Paris attacks.

Abdeslam and two suspects were hiding in an apartment when police arrived for a routine search.

Three officers were injured in the shootout that followed and one suspect was killed.

Abdeslam was captured a few days later in the flashpoint Brussels neighbourhood of Molenbeek.