The sole surviving member of the terror squad that killed 130 people in Paris in 2015 has been transferred from France to Belgium, where he will be tried later this year for attacks there in 2016.
Abdeslam was handed a whole-life sentence by a French court last month for his involvement in the 2015 attacks at the Bataclan theatre and other locations in Paris.
The 32-year-old Frenchman of Moroccan origin who used to live in Brussels was on Wednesday flown from Fleury-Merogis prison south of Paris to Belgium's Ittre prison, according to a source close to the case.
He will be held in prison in Belgium until his trial on 10 October.
Abdeslam is being tried there for his involvement in March 2016 attacks that were carried out by the same cell behind the Paris attacks.
The attacks in Belgium, which killed 32 people at the national airport and in a Brussels metro station, were also claimed by the Islamic State armed group.
The Belgian trial could last until the summer of 2023.
Abdeslam was captured in Brussels by police days before the Belgium attacks and was handed over to France to face trial there over the 2015 attacks in Paris.
On 29 June, he was sentenced to life in prison with only a tiny chance of parole after 30 years, the toughest possible punishment under French law.
Abdeslam did not appeal the sentence after the trial, which was the biggest in modern French history.
He will be tried in Belgium alongside five of his co-defendants in Paris, including Mohamed Abrini, the "man in the hat" who abandoned his cart of explosives at the Brussels airport before fleeing.
Another native of Brussels, Oussama Atar, the alleged mastermind of the Paris attacks, will also be tried in absentia, as he is presumed dead in Syria.
(with AFP)
