Belgian police pinpoint three safe houses used by Paris attack plotters

Belgian police have found two apartments and a house used by suspects before they carried out the terror attacks in Paris, prosecutors said on Wednesday. The premises included a flat in the city of Charleroi where investigators found fingerprints of suspected ringleader Abdelhamid Abaaoud and of Bilal Hadfi, who blew himself up outside the Stade de France on the night of the attacks. Prosecutors also cited a flat in the Brussels district of Schaerbeek already identified on Friday and a small house in the rural village of Auvelais, near the French border.

The investigators were able to identify three premises that have been used by the conspiring perpetrators of the attacks of 13th November 2015

Federal prosecutor Eric Van Der Sypt

The Auvelais house was searched on November 26 and the Charleroi apartment on December 9, they said. No traces of explosives or weapons were found in either. All of the accommodation was rented using false names and paid for in cash, prosecutors said. In the case of the Auvelais house, the fake identity was that of a person picked up in Budapest on September 9 by key suspect Salah Abdeslam, who is now on the run. An international manhunt has been underway for Belgian-born Abdeslam, 26, since suicide bombers and assailants firing automatic weapons killed 130 people and wounded 350 in a wave of attacks across Paris.

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