Paris attacks mastermind flew from Germany to Turkey in 2014: Report

BERLIN - Reuters

Forensics of the French police and members of the BRI, a special unit of the French police, are at work in the northern Paris suburb of Saint-Denis city center, on November 18, 2015, as French Police special forces raid an appartment, hunting those behind the attacks that claimed 129 lives in the French capital five days ago. AFP Photo

The suspected mastermind of the Paris attacks was questioned by German police at Cologne-Bonn airport early last year before he boarded a plane to Istanbul, Spiegel magazine reported on Nov. 19, quoting security officials. 

Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a 28-year-old Belgian killed in a police raid in the French capital on Nov. 18, told German police on Jan. 20, 2014 he wanted to visit family and friends in the Turkish city and would return to Europe, Spiegel said. 

The German Interior Ministry had no immediate comment. 

Abaaoud had boasted in an online English-language magazine produced by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) about the ease with which he could move between Syria and Belgium and the rest of Europe. 

The Austrian Interior Ministry told Reuters that a claim in the Nov. 19 Spiegel report that Abaaoud had crossed from Germany into Austria on Sept. 9, 2015 was untrue. 

A spokesman said the man who crossed the border with two other suspected militants was Salah Abdeslam, a key suspect in the Paris attacks who remains at large.