A Paris court on Tuesday agreed to prolong by 24 hours the detention of Mehdi Nemmouche, the prime suspect in the Jewish Museum attack in Brussels in which four people were killed on May 24.
The demand, made by a French prosecutor was said to be a rare measure in France, to be applied only in cases where there is an “imminent” risk of attack or when the demand is regarded as necessary for international cooperation.
Nemmouche, a 29-year-old French national who spent more than a year with in Syria where he is believed to have received training from Islamist jihadists, is suspected of walking into the Jewish Museum on May 24, gunning down staff and visitors with a Kalashnikov automatic rifle.
A couple of Israeli tourists, a French woman and a Belgian museum employee man died in the shooting.
The suspect was detained by customs officials during a check at a bus station in the southern French city of Marseille on Friday when he arrived aboard a coach coming from Amsterdam via Brussels. The weapons found in his luggage “were arms of the same type used on May 24 in Brussels.”
Nemmouche has reportedly said nothing so far to interrogators and has refused to be taken out of his cell.
He was expected to appear before a magistrate on Wednesday to be notified that he is the object of a European arrest warrant and then detained awaiting extradition to Belgium, a move that he is reported not to oppose.
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said that anti-terror police have upped their estimate of French nationals who have fought or intend to fight in Syria to 800.
"We have never before faced a challenge of this kind," Valls told French television. ‘
It is without any doubt the most serious threat we face. We have to ensure the surveillance of hundreds and hundreds of French or European individuals who are today fighting in Syria."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thas hanked French President Francois Hollande for his country’s capture of Nemmouche.
In a telephone conversation on Tuesday, Netanyahu also thanked Hollande for his “strong and consistent stand against anti-Semitism,” according to the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office.
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve was due to visit the Brussels Jewish Museum on Wednesday to honor the victims and meet leaders of the Jewish community.