Suspect linked to November Paris attacks arrested

A 29-year-old man was arrested on Tuesday in connection with last month’s attacks in Paris while two other suspects were being questioned in relation to the attacks in January in the French capital.

Le Carillon restaurant, one of the attack sites in Paris, 16 November, 2015 Reuters/Jacky Naegelen

According to judicial sources, a man, aged 29, was arrested in the Paris region as part of the investigation into Paris attacks on 13 November that left 130 dead.

Two men are already in custody in this investigation. Both are accused of providing accommodation to Belgian-Moroccan Jihadist Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the alleged mastermind of the November Paris attacks.

In Belgium, where the attacks are thought to have been organized, eight men have already been arrested although Salah Abdeslam, a French citizen subject to an international arrest warrant is still on the run.

Separately, a man and a woman were questioned on Tuesday in the northern city of Lille in relation to the Charlie Hebdo and Hyper Cacher supermarket attacks last January in Paris.

The man, Claude Hermant, aged 52, was charged earlier this year with arms trafficking.

Investigators believe that an assault rifle and four Tokarev pistols, belonging to Amedy Coulibaly the jihadist who killed four people at Hyper Cacher supermarket, have been sourced from Hermant.

A woman, who may be his wife, has managed a place where arms could have moved through.

A total of seven men have been charged with providing weapons or vehicles to Coulibaly.

According to French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve on Tuesday more than 2,700 police searches have been conducted since the emergency state was declared in France, over 430 weapons have been seized and about 360 people have been put under house arrest.

“Some 1,800 French citizens have been linked to jihadist networks,” added Cazeneuve.