Lawyers for Salah Abdeslam 'will not defend him'

Salah Abdeslam will use his right to remain silent, one of the lawyers, Frank Berton, told BFM TV.

"We said from the beginning... that if our client remained silent we would quit his defence," he said, alongside fellow lawyer Sven Mary.

The attacks in Paris last November on bars, restaurants, a concert hall and the Stade de France killed 130 people.

So-called Islamic State said it was behind them.

Salah Abdeslam was arrested in Brussels in March and has kept silent since his transfer to France in April.

He is being monitored 24 hours a day by video in his prison cell. Mr Berton said in May the suspect was "particularly disturbed" by the surveillance.

Abdeslam is thought to have played a key role in planning the Paris attacks and transporting the attackers, but investigators are yet to determine his specific role.

The lawyers informed Abdeslam they would no longer represent him on 6 October, BFM TV reports (in French). It says that at present, he does not want to be represented by anyone else.

Legal representation is not required while the investigation continues but will be at his trial.

"The real victims of all of this are the victims of the Paris attacks, because they are entitled to this truth and they have the right to try to comprehend the incomprehensible," Sven Mary said.

Salah Abdeslam - from petty crook to Islamist

Born 15 September 1989 in Brussels

In his teens, he and two brothers get into trouble with police for drug trafficking

Transport technician for STIB from 2009-11 but fired for poor timekeeping

Jailed briefly for burglary in 2010 with Abdelhamid Abbaoud, the suspected ringleader of the Paris attacks, who went to the same Molenbeek school

In 2013 managed "Les Beguines" bar in Molenbeek with brother Brahim; the bar was shut down in 2015

Briefly detained by Dutch police in February 2015, fined €70 (£49) for possession of cannabis

Both brothers placed on police list in 2015 for links to Islamist fighters in Syria

(BBC)