After a tense week devoted to the events of the day of November 13, 2015, the special assize court heard this Monday April 4 the Belgian and French investigators on “ exfiltration by Salah Abdeslam, the only surviving member of the terrorist commandos, and his return to Belgium.
From our special correspondent at the Paris courthouse,
Let’s start by saying it: the police officers interviewed on Monday made no revelations, but their hearing made it possible to trace Salah Abdeslam’s career with precision and to raise the questions that still arise.
The exposition begins when the Frenchman parks his car in the 18th arrondissement of Paris after leaving the three terrorists at the Stade de France. It’s almost 10 p.m., two of them have already blown themselves up and the attacks targeting the Parisian terraces and the Bataclan have already begun. Salah Abdeslam parks very badly, his vehicle is in a bend, half parked on a pedestrian crossing, and he does not close the doors when leaving. He then takes the subway even if the investigators could not formally establish it and goes down two stations further to buy a telephone chip.
Appeals to Mohamed Amri and Hamza Attou
There follows a first call to Mohamed Amri who has already rendered several services to the Abdeslam brothers. Salah Abdeslam asks him to pick him up, but Amri, who has just started working for the social welfare of Brussels, refuses and sends him back to Hamza Attou, another close friend of the Abdeslam brothers in Molenbeek.
How did Salah Abdeslam get Mohamed Amri’s number when he no longer has a phone on him? Had he written it down or memorized it? Why ask Hamza Attou who has neither license nor vehicle to pick him up in Paris? The investigation did not establish this. We know, however, that Salah Abdeslam is still wearing his explosive vest and that he is going to Châtillon / Montrouge, in the southern suburbs of Paris.
► To read also: November 13 trial: the awkward silences and awkward responses of Salah Abdeslam
Did he take the metro or the taxi? Again, the investigation could not determine this. The question is however important, insofar as the terrorist cell in its preparatory files had planned a group “metro and that the Islamic State organization in its claim message mentions an attack in the 18th arrondissement of Paris that never took place.
We know, however, that Salah Abdeslam spends part of the night with two teenagers in a stairwell in Châtillon where they share a McDo. They talk about everything and nothing, attacks that come to happen, even watch a video that is already circulating without Salah Abdeslam seeming to react. Around 2am, Mohamed Amri has finished his work, he decides with Hamza Attou to go get Abdeslam. At the time of leaving, they both know that the French capital has been hit by a triple attack, without it being possible to say that they made the link with the presence of Abdeslam which talked about a car breakdown.
Soon the most wanted man in Europe
They arrive at the bottom of the building where he took refuge around 5am. Abdeslam is tense and quickly confesses to being part of the terrorist commandos. By then, he had already dumped his explosive belt outside a squat a few blocks away, where it would not be found until 10 days later. He holds contradictory remarks to his two friends, claiming both to have entered a bar to blow himself up and to have given up, while explaining that his belt was defective.
On the way, the three men were checked three times, their vehicle searched, but at that time, Abdeslam’s name was not yet circulating. They arrive in Belgium around 10am. Salah Abdeslam buys new clothes in a market, gets a beard cut, changes his haircut and buys a new phone chip. He calls a third man, Ali Oulkadi, to take him near one of the terrorist cell’s hideouts. Soon, Salah Abdeslam will be the most wanted man in Europe. This is the beginning of a run that will end with his arrest on March 18, 2016, four days before the attacks in Brussels.