Paris: The man who loaned his Paris suburb apartment to the suspected ringleader of the attacks on the city and accomplices but claimed he did not know who they were, was sent before a French judge.
Jawad Bendaoud, who sparked a flurry of mocking social media memes for an interview he gave protesting his innocence as the police assault on the apartment in Saint-Denis was ongoing, was arrested soon afterwards.
Police targeted the apartment in northern Paris while hunting the attacks’ suspected ringleader Abdelhamid Abaaoud. Abaaoud was killed during the police raid, along with a woman thought to be his cousin, Hasna Aitboulahcen, and another as yet unidentified man. Bendaoud, whose detention was extended until today, could face formal charges.
Police were tipped off to his possible involvement when they saw a man who resembled him talking with Aitboulahcen the night before the raid. The meeting between the two, police said, could have been to negociate payment for the apartment’s lease to the jihadists.
