Belgium detains 1 person as part of Paris attacks probe

Police in Belgium have arrested five people in their investigation into last month’s Paris terror attacks, the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office announced Monday.

No explosives or weapons were found during the searches, the statement said.

At the third stop, near Cambrai in the far north of France, Abdeslam even gave his address in Molenbeek.

Two men were taken into custody for questioning, but they are not believed to be the suspect with the phones, Het Nieuwsblad wrote. Both men were to be taken to a judge Monday, to decide if they could be held for longer, Reuters reported.

But the 26-year-old fugitive Salah Abdeslam – who was allegedly directly involved in the November 13 attacks – was not one of the detained.

Pedestrians were evacuated as the raid took place, from 6 p.m.to 11 p.m. local time.

A source close to the Belgian investigation told AFP earlier on Sunday that Abdeslam made it past three police checks when friends drove him from Paris to Brussels in the hours after the coordinated gun and suicide attacks.

It is believed that he played a central role in the ISIS terrorist attacks on November 13 which killed 130 people. A cell phone found in a garbage bin near the Bataclan concert hall, where most people were killed, had several text messages sent to Belgium, including one saying “We have left” and another saying “We are about to start”.

It is thought that Belgian-born Abdeslam may have been smuggled from his hiding place in Belgium in a piece of furniture going into a removal van, or a vehicle.