A Belgian fugitive suspected of taking part in the Paris attacks was stopped three times by French police as he was driven back to Brussels the following morning but allowed to carry on his way, a defense lawyer said on Tuesday.
As the manhunt continued for Salah Abdeslam, 26, a lawyer for a friend accused of being his accomplice, and who admits driving Abdeslam home from Paris, told Belgian broadcaster RTBF that a previously reported police check on them as they neared the Belgian border about 9 a.m. on Saturday was only the last of three such occasions when French police halted their car.
As security chiefs looked for missed signals of a plot that French President Francois Hollande says was planned in Belgium and ordered from Syria, Brussels hit back at criticism of its intelligence effort to contain one of the densest collections of radical groups in Europe with ties to Islamic State.