The trial of the attacks of November 13, 2015 continues before the Special Assize Court of Paris which is now interested in the events of autumn 2015 and the period of preparations for the attacks in Paris and Saint-Denis. This Tuesday Salah Abdeslam, the only member of the commando still alive, was called upon to answer questions from the Court in a particularly tense atmosphere.
With our special correspondent at the Special Assize Court of Paris, Nathanel Vittrant
The atmosphere was so electric that the defense benches were emptied, the lawyers and in particular those of Salah Abdeslam considering that the conditions for a serene debate were no longer met. President Jean-Louis Périès had however suspended the hearing to try to reduce the tension, without success.
The huge room where the trial is taking place, deserted for weeks, is full again, many victims have made the trip to hear the explanations of Salah Abdeslam and loudly demonstrated, with applause, their dissatisfaction with the many provocations of the accused, claiming in particular that they “(had) screwed up (his) life”. And in an Assize Court this is strictly forbidden.
On the bottom, standing in the box, Salah Abdeslam recognizes two of the four trips that allowed in the fall of 2015 to bring back to Belgium the commandos from Syria and who were in Hungary or Germany after having followed the route of the migrants. ” Today there is war in Ukraine, there are people who go looking for people at the border, it’s exactly the same thing. I went looking for people fleeing a war zone “, he justified himself.
The Court then pointed out to him that the men he is accused of having escorted, the future terrorists of the Stade de France and the Bataclan were combatants, mostly Europeans and not Syrian refugees. Salah Abdeslam tacks, and ends up letting go: “ If I had been told that I was going to look for people to commit attacks, I would not have gone to look for them. »