The trial of the attacks of November 13, 2015 was marked this Friday, April 15, 2022 by the tears of Salah Abdeslam. The main defendant asked for forgiveness from the victims, at the conclusion of three days of interrogation, the last devoted to the facts. A belated apology that marks a clear change in the defense strategy of the only surviving member of the commandos.
From our special correspondent at the Paris courthouse,
” This story of 13-November, it was written with the blood of the victims, it is their story and I am part of it. They are related to me and I am related to them. One says, “hate your enemy in moderation because tomorrow he may become your friend“. I ask you to hate me in moderation. »
Salah Abdeslam has red eyes when he speaks one last time: “ I apologize to you and ask you to forgive me. I know it’s not going to cure you, but if I was able to do any good to a single victim, for me it’s a victory. Salah Abdeslam sits down again.
Far from the vindictive boy who presented himself as a fighter
He seems far away, the vindictive boy who, in the early days of the trial, presented himself as an Islamic State fighter. For three days, with the help of his lawyers, Salah Abdeslam tried to present another face, that of a little brother under influence who discovered two days before the attacks the true objective of everything to which, for weeks , he had contributed.
A young man overwhelmed by events, trapped.
If my brother had told me from the start, we are going to look for warriors to carry out attacks, I would never have accepted. The party animal that I was would not have accepted
For three days he slipped through the cracks in the file
Well advised by his lawyers, Me Olivia Ronen and Me Martin Vettes, Salah Abdeslam worked for three days to slip into the flaws in the file to give a credible version of the facts if not always perfectly coherent.
Thus, he explained for the first time this week that the car he had abandoned in the 18th arrondissement of Paris had broken down, a few days after his lawyer asked an investigator if this hypothesis had been verified (she did not). had not been).
He claims to have taken the taxi and not the metro to reach Montrouge, in the southern suburbs of Paris, while a policeman explained that he had not been able to determine how he got there, and that the prosecution seems convinced that he was destined to blow himself up on public transport.
“It was not my place to say it, but my intention is not bad”
Me Martin Vettes is annoyed by the way: “ You are criticized for having statements that stick to the file, and when it doesn’t stick, you are also blamed for it. It’s a bit problematic… ” Salah Abdeslam also took care to defuse the hurtful remarks he had made the day before, when he said that the victims had left ” grown up of the attacks and that they had acquired qualities that cannot be bought in a supermarket “.
” I heard a young girl on the stand who expressed her anger and who studied for six years to become a doctor, others who turned to writing, I found that beautiful “, he said. ” Maybe it was not my place to say it, but my intention is not bad. »
“Are you proud to have given up?” ” ” Yes. »
Salah Abdeslam repeats that he did not kill anyone and that he gave up in this cafe in the 18th arrondissement, where he says he returned on the evening of November 13. ” Are you proud to have given up? Asks a civil party lawyer. An angel passes. ” Yes. Sometimes, with everything that happens to me, I tell myself that if I had activated this belt, I would not be here. But when I think back to the people in that bar, I think I did well. »
►To re-read: At the November 13 trial, Abdeslam says he entered a cafe and “gave up”
” You repeat almost every hearing that you didn’t kill anyone. It gives us the impression that you don’t feel responsible for the dead and injured. Am I wrong ? asks another victims’ lawyer.
►To re-read: At the November 13 trial, Salah Abdeslam slips and does not convince
” Yes, you are wrong. » « When you drop human bombs at the Stade de France, don’t you feel responsible? » « Of course, I have that on my conscience, and I do not deny my responsibility. What I mean is that I didn’t kill directly. But if it bothers your clients, I won’t say I didn’t kill nobody. »
►Read also: At the November 13 trial, Ali Oulkadi’s regrets
” What image would you like to leave? asks another lawyer. ” I don’t want people to remember me. I want to be forgotten forever. »
Tears of Death Commando Survivor
Tears, in addition to apologies and a trembling voice, to end his last interrogation. Salah Abdeslam, who is the only living member of the jihadist commandos who killed 130 dead in Paris and Saint-Denis, could not hold them back this Friday. It was by evoking his mother that they began to flow down his cheeks, for the first time since the start of this historic trial in September 2021.
The Frenchman, who grew up in Belgium, also addressed the three defendants tried for having helped him in his escape after the attacks. He also asked them to “forgive” him. “ I didn’t want to drag (them) into it, ”he said. One of them, who appears free, will leave by the room, “the eyes filled with tears “, writes Agence France-Presse in its own report.
After the conclusion of Salah Abdeslam, President Jean-Louis Périès suspended the hearing in the room left without reaction, with sparse benches. ” It’s a surprise “, subsequently reacted, visibly shaken, Georges Salines, whose daughter was killed at the Bataclan. Forgiveness, difficult for some, “ it’s important that he asks… we’ll think about it “, added this father.
” Everyone has their vision of this testimony and their analysis of these tears. Neither my clients nor I were moved by this styling exercise. “, for his part declared Me Gérard Chemla, lawyer for a hundred victims. The latter, prowled by this long trial, prefers to evoke a “ constructed and polished discourse “. He ” cried over him and his friends, not over the victims “, he remarked.
►To re-read: At the November 13 trial, Abdeslam’s conveyors recount his exfiltration