French court artist Elisabeth de Pourquery's sketches showing Salah Abdeslam, one of the accused, who is widely-believed to be the only surviving member of the group suspected of carrying out the Paris' November 2015 attacks, are displayed on a desk during an interview with Reuters at her home near Paris, France, September 27, 2021. Picture taken September 27, 2021. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes
PARIS (Reuters) -French anti-terrorist prosecutors have launched a new investigation into Salah Abdeslam, the only convicted perpetrator of the 2015 Paris attacks, on suspicion he sneaked a flash drive holding jihadist content into his prison cell.
The French prison authority found in January that Abdeslam, who is allowed to have a computer in his cell, had connected it to a USB drive four times in December 2024 and January 2025, the prosecutor's office said in a statement.
"Computer analysis revealed the presence of numerous recordings in the form of 'access paths' to audio, image, or video files, most of which related to official propaganda from terrorist organisations, such as the Islamic State or al Qaeda," the statement said.
The suspected offences included having illegal objects in his cell and complicity in criminal association, it added.
His former partner, identified as Maeva B., admitted she bought the drive, loaded it with jihadist propaganda and delivered it to Abdeslam during a prison visit, according to the anti-terrorism prosecutor.
She is also under investigation in the probe and separately on suspicion of "belonging to a terrorism organisation seeking to commit crimes against people," based on documents seized at her home during police searches.
Her husband, a 20-year-old man, and a 17-year-old woman close to her, were also arrested as part of that second investigation. The prosecutor is asking for the three of them to be held in pre-trial detention.
Abdeslam, who is believed to be the only surviving member of the Islamist squad that killed 130 people in a night of carnage across Paris, was found guilty of terrorism and murder charges in 2022 and sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of early release.
The prosecutor's decision comes as the country prepares to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the traumatic attacks, the deadliest in the country since World War Two.
(Reporting by Inti Landauro; editing by Richard Lough and Andrew Heavens)
