The only surviving suspect of the Paris attacks 'wanted to die' during the atrocity

Salah Abdeslam, the only surviving suspect of the 2015 Paris attacks in which 130 people were killed, wanted to die that night but his suicide vest did not work, his cousin told French broadcaster RTL.

Abid Aberkan said Abdeslam wanted to end his life outside the Stade de France football stadium but his suicide vest, which he dumped in a bin on the outskirts of Paris, did not detonate.

Abdeslam also reportedly told him how proud he was of his little brother, Brahim, who died after as a suicide bomber in a Parisian café on November 13.

Aberkan said his cousin Abdeslam was completely exhausted when he called him on March 15 2016, four months after the attacks, begging to be picked up and hidden.

Aberkan accepted and picked up his cousin who was wearing tracksuit bottoms, a jacket and only had some biscuits and a bottle of water. He drove Abdeslam and one of his accomplices to a basement owned by his mother, which is where he was arrested three days later after 127 on the run.

Abdeslam had asked his cousin for clean clothes, food, and a gun in case he had to face policemen.

At the time, Abdeslam had just fled another hiding place in the rue du Dries in Bruxelles after a shoot out with Belgian police forces in which Mohamed Belkaid, who helped the attackers carry out the Paris attacks, was killed.

Abdeslam is currently held in a prison in France and has refused to talk to any of the judges in charge of the investigation. His lawyer, who has once said his client had "the intelligence of an empty ashtray" said in October he would no longer defend him given his refusal to answer any questions.