That’s it “truth” and “if this truth does not suit you”Salah Abdeslam does not “form”. The main defendant in the trial of the November 13 attacks gave his account of the attacks before the special assize court in Paris. His final interrogation, originally scheduled for one day, ended Friday, April 15, on “apologies” presented “to all the victims”. The 32-year-old Frenchman, the only surviving member of the jihadist commandos who killed 130 people in Paris and Saint-Denis, was talkative. “This is the last chance for me to express myself”, he justified himself.
The accused had already declared during the trial that he had given up blowing himself up. When he speaks on Wednesday, Salah Abdeslam reveals for the first time that he was to commit a suicide attack in a bar in the 18th arrondissement of Paris on the evening of November 13, 2015. The room, hanging on his lips, is dumbfounded. If he gave up, it’s “out of humanity”he blurts out. “I’m going to go to a cafe, I’m going to go home, order a drink, I’m going to look at the people around me and I’m going to say, ‘I’m not going to do it'”, he says. Before explaining: “They were young people, younger than me and I didn’t want to kill them.”
When the interrogation resumed, late Thursday afternoon, the first assessor was surprised by these revelations. She asks why he had never spoken of this planned attack in a café. “Why didn’t I say I had to go into a bar? Because that incriminated me. I was trying to hide that.” If he kept “the silence”it’s because he was told to do so: “It’s an instruction that I have retained.” Also, he didn’t want “not unpack everything” before the Belgian investigating judge, the first to question him after his arrest in March 2016. At that time, Salah Abdeslam claimed that he had to “blow up inside the Stade de France” with his accomplices. “You understand that we can ask questions about the mission that was yours”points out the first assessor.
Today, the accused says he has“took the car”, after conveying the three suicide bombers to the Stade de France. Until she “fails”. So he abandons the Clio in a square in the 18th arrondissement of Paris. It is 9:59 p.m.: the shootings have just taken place on the terraces and the Bataclan massacre has started twelve minutes ago. Salah Abdeslam then said he took a taxi to the south of Paris and spoke about the attacks with the driver. “He was a North African, a Muslim. He said to me: ‘All these things will fall on us'”, he reports Thursday, from the dock. Salah Abdeslam, who “doesn’t have a lot of money” in pocket, carry on “run” on foot, gets rid of the explosive belt in Montrouge and marches to Châtillon. This is where Mohamed Amri and Hamza Attou, his two “friends” Belgians who had become co-defendants picked him up in the early morning.
Did Salah Abdeslam take the metro to “a few stops”, the evening of November 13, 2015, as he had declared shortly after his arrest? He disputes it now. Investigators can’t prove it. The question is important, because the metro could have been one of the commandos’ targets, according to the content of a file entitled “November 13” found in the computer abandoned in a dumpster by the jihadist cell, the March 22, 2016, just before the attacks in Brussels.
In this file were five groups or targets, one of which “metro group”with “every time groups of two or three people”, observes, Thursday, Advocate General Camille Hennetier. So she thinks “incongruous” that Salah Abdeslam was able to act “all alone”. “For me, blowing myself up in a subway or in a cafe doesn’t change anything at all”replies the defendant calmly. “It’s hard to believe you because all the other operations are done by several people”, annoys Didier Seban, lawyer for civil parties. This time, Salah Abdeslam is losing patience. “I’m going to be a little selfish, I’m going to tell my truth, whoever doesn’t want to hear it, I don’t care”he shouts, raising his voice.
Another civil party lawyer, Aurélie Cerceau, takes a softer tone to question Salah Abdeslam. She returns to the sound clips and photos taken after the assault on the Bataclan, broadcast on April 1. “What did you think 15 days ago?” she asks. The lawyer tries to take her to the field of emotion, but Salah Abdeslam declares: “The victims testified one after the other. I saw that they emerged stronger from all these ordeals, more cultured and with sensitivity. They acquired qualities that cannot be bought in the supermarket. .”
With a trembling voice, Aurélie Cerceau evokes one of her clients without “physical injury”but whose life is devastated, and who has no “never dared to cross the door of the courtyard”. “What do you say to him?” “You are in a position of strength and I of weakness, you have the possibility to forgive and to move forward. To give me the chance to find the people I cherish”, responds the accused. For some civil parties, it’s too much. A cry rang out. “Never never”, protested Olivier, 33, before leaving the courtroom. Salah Abdeslam apologizes again. But a few minutes later, when he says that “Islamic State continues its fight” and that he regrets the death of Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the coordinator of the attacks, his state of mind has changed: hatred can be read in his eyes.
It is yet another face that Salah Abdeslam shows on Friday, on the third and last day of this intense interrogation. While his lawyer, Olivia Ronen, asks him if he regrets having given up blowing himself up, the accused is moved. “I did not kill these people and I did not die. I do not regret for them, I do not regret for me, I do not regret for my mother, for my family”, he replies. The mention of his mother makes him cry. “She tells me that I am compensating for the loss of her first son, that thanks to that she can bear”he articulates in a strangled voice. “This story of November 13 was written with the blood of the victims, I am linked to them and they are linked to me”he continued, sobbing.
Like the day before, Salah Abdeslam asks to be forgiven. “I ask you today to hate me in moderation. I also want to tell you that I offer my condolences and apologize for all the victims.” A few tears run down her cheeks. He also asks Mohamed Amri and Hamza Attou, as well as Ali Oulkadi, also tried for having helped him in his escape after the attacks, to “to forgive”. “I know it won’t cure you but I know that the good word can do good”he says. “And if I was able to do good to just one of the victims… It’s already a victory”, he finishes. Then he lowers the microphone and sits down.
This time, the civil parties did not leave the room. “I find it interesting that Salah Abdeslam is trying to settle a mountain of contradictions in his head”reacts Georges Salines, father of Lola, killed at the Bataclan, during the suspension of the hearing. “He is trying to solve them, but his path will still be long.”