The first images of Salah Abdeslam, who is wanted in Europe for his part in the Paris terror attacks in November, were released Monday, The Telegraph reports.
The footage from security cameras shows Abdeslam along with a friend at a petrol station on the Belgium border shortly after fleeing France. The images were first broadcast by the French channel BFM TV.
The images show Abdeslam and the friend Hamza Attou looking relaxed as they stop at the service station in Trith-Saint-Léger, near the Belgian border.
The footage was shot at 9:45 a.m. on November 14, the day after the terror attacks in Paris in which 130 people were killed, reported The Telegraph.
At the time, Abdeslam had not yet been identified as a prime suspect, allowing him to slip pass through three French police road checks to reach Belgium and sparking complaints of poor intelligence sharing between the two countries, noted the report.
Abdeslam is thought to have played an important logistical role in the attacks, hiring the cars that ferried the terrorists from Belgium and booking French hotel rooms in his name beforehand, though it remains unclear what he did on the night of the attacks.
There has been a manhunt for Abdeslam, 26, ever since the November 13 attacks. He was not one of 16 suspects arrested in 19 recent raids by the Belgian security forces, and it was later speculated that he fled from Belgium to Germany.
Subsequent reports indicated he had traveled to Hungary before the attacks in Paris, where he “recruited a team” from unregistered migrants passing through.
Last week, Belgian police found his fingerprints in a Brussels apartment along with three suicide vests, noted The Telegraph.
A string of people have since been charged with helping Abdeslam get back to Brussels’ Molenbeek district and evade capture.