France Seeks Turkey Detainee In Paris Attacks Probe

Paris (AFP)- French investigators probing the 2015 Paris attacks have asked Turkey to hand over a detainee suspected of helping the jihadists with logistics, sources close to the case told AFP on Tuesday.

Ahmed Dahmani, a 28-year-old Belgian-Moroccan, is an associate of Salah Abdeslam, the only prime suspect still alive after the Islamic State group attacks that left 130 people dead.

French investigators issued an international arrest warrant on May 23 for Mr. Dahmani, jailed in Turkey on jihadism charges, sources said.

Mr. Dahmani has a history of petty crime and hails from Molenbeek, a Brussels neighborhood that was home to several of the jihadists behind the Paris attacks and March 2016 Brussels bombings.

Mohamed Abrini, a failed Brussels bomber who is now in detention in Belgium, described Mr. Dahmani as a childhood friend.

A source said a document found at Mr. Dahmani’s home — during a search two months before the Paris attacks in connection with a stolen car — contained details of the French shop where Mr. Abdeslam bought products to make explosives.

Extremist propaganda was also found at his home.

Mr. Dahmani traveled to Turkey from Amsterdam on November 15, 2015, the morning after the attacks targeting the Bataclan concert venue, the State de France stadium and Paris nightspots.

French authorities placed him under electronic surveillance.

A week after his arrival in Turkey, Mr. Dahmani was arrested with two people smugglers who were attempting to take him to Syria.

All three were sentenced last year to 10 years and nine months in jail for belonging to a terrorist group and for forgery.

Phone records confirmed that Mr. Dahmani and Mr. Abdeslam had been in contact hundreds of times.

Abdeslam was also stopped by police while trying to board a ferry from Greece to Italy with Mr. Dahmani in August 2015, three months before the Paris attacks.

Investigators believe Mr. Abdeslam, who is in detention in France, helped around a dozen jihadists enter Europe via Greece posing as migrants.

Mr. Abdeslam refuses to speak to investigators, who have charged or are seeking around 15 other suspects as part of the sprawling probe into the deadliest attack in French history.