Mehdi Nemmouche, the suspected islamist terrorist in the killing of four people at the Jewish museum in Brussels on May 24, said he would not oppose extradition to Belgium if this country pledged not to hand him on to another country.
Nemmouche, 29, appeared at a French court hearing in Versailles, near Paris on Thursday. The court said that the decision will be taken on 26 June on his extradition demanded by Belgium under a European arrest warrant.
According to Nemmouch’s lawyer Apolin Pepiezip, .he told the court he was not opposed to his transfer to Belgium as long as he has assurances he will not be sent on to ‘’a third country.’’ Two Israelis, Emmanuel and Mira Riv, a couple of tourists visiting Brussels, were killed in the museum shooting. A retired French woman and a Belgian museum employee were the two other victims.
The lawyer said Nemmouche would prefer to face trial in France, as he had previously argued.
“My client is French, he was arrested in France and one of the victims is French,” he told the court.
Nemmouche was arrested on May 30 in Marseille as he arrived on board of a bus from Amstersam. A revolver and a Kalashnikov rifle were found in his luggage — similar weapons to those used in the shooting — as was a portable camera.
After a five-year jail sentence for multiple offences, the suspected terrorist spent over a year fighting in Syria withing the ranks of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) one of the most brutal Islamist terror groups involved in that country's civil war.