BRUSSELS — Fugitive Salah Abdeslam may have eluded capture two days after the Paris attacks when Belgian police waited overnight to search a Brussels house where he could have been hiding, a Belgian federal prosecutor said Thursday.
‘‘Did he escape? Did he not escape? Nobody knows,’’ prosecutor Eric Van der Sypt said.
Van der Sypt said police had waited until 10 a.m. on Nov. 16 to move on the house in the Molenbeek neighborhood of Brussels because of various factors, including a Belgian law banning home searches between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m. except for certain crimes.
Authorities also wanted to be certain no harm would come to the 200 to 300 worshipers who attend early morning prayers at a nearby mosque, as well as children on their way to school, the prosecutor said.
Some media reported that Abdeslam, 26, brother of one of the suicide bombers who blew themselves up during the Nov. 13 attacks that killed 130, was smuggled out of the house, but Van der Sypt said that hasn’t been proven.