“The victims are waiting for answers.” TOu the trial of the attacks of November 13, more than 350 civil parties delivered their painful stories. For the seven months of hearing remaining, the rescaped and bereaved relatives are now hoping for explanations from the 14 defendants present. But sometimes also that of the political leaders in office at the time.
“I expect this trial that the State and its actors take stock of their successes but also their failures”, argued a Bataclan survivor. “Your court has the opportunity to question those who were in charge at the time and I ask you to be uncompromising on the subject”, argued another survivor. It is therefore “with interest” that some victims will follow thehearing of the former President of the Republic, François Hollande, Wednesday, November 10, then that of his Minister of the Interior at the time, Bernard Cazeneuve, a week later.
Since the opening of the trial, the questions around the supposed responsibilities of the State and its services were embedded in the debates. Starting with questions about the monitoring of members of the terrorist cell, and in particular the Belgian-Moroccan Abdelhamid Abaaoud. The operational chief of the November 13 commandos, killed three days after the attacks in Saint-Denis, had been the subject of an international arrest warrant since 2014 issued by the Belgian authorities. The discovery of its presence in France, while all the intelligence services believed in Syria, was “a cataclysm”, admitted at the bar a former official of the anti-terrorism sub-directorate.
“I stalked him”, there is “not a person, not a place that has not been investigated” to find him, defended Isabelle Panou, the Belgian anti-terrorism judge. Faced with insistent questions from some civil party lawyers, the magistrate recalled the many means deployed by the Islamic State to keep its fighters under the radar of the authorities.
“Abdelhamid Abaaoud had an extraordinary ability to escape. He escaped the French, the Belgians, the Greeks. Alas, alas three times…”
Isabelle Panou, Belgian anti-terrorism judgeSeptember 14, before the Special Assize Court of Paris
The Belgian services were also singled out for the surveillance of the Abdeslam brothers: Brahim, who blew himself up at the Comptoir Voltaire café, and Salah, the only member of the commandos still alive. According to a confidential report from the Belgian police, elements of which were revealed by “L’Œil du 20 heures”, the two men were reported several months before the attacks.
At the beginning of 2015, they were heard one after the other by the Brussels police, but denied any radicalization and any inclination to leave for Syria, even though Brahim Abdeslam was coming back. The authors of the report also argue that the exploitation of the computer equipment seized at the time only made it possible to establish after the attacks that Brahim Abdeslam was linked to Abdelhamid Abaaoud. The two men had yet exchanged in July 2014, emphasizes The world (subscribers). Gérard Chemla, lawyer for more than 130 civil parties, wants this report, which has never been made public, to be cited at trial.
“It’s not them [les services français et belges] who are being tried, but not putting everything on the table during the trial, it’s just incomprehensible. “
Gérard Chemla, lawyer for civil parties in the trial of the November 13 attacksto franceinfo
In addition to monitoring jihadists, several victims also question the prevention of acts of terrorism. “We knew there were threats of attacks “, thus assured a bereaved father, who wonders what the“State” did in an attempt to prevent these attacks. “If my son had known that the Bataclan was a potential target, he would not have gone to the [concert]“, wants to believe another battered father. The latter, which also evokes a “perfect investigation”, aspires that the trial will make it possible to identify possible “malfunctions”.
As early as 2009, suspicions of a planned attack against the Bataclan had been discovered in another anti-terrorism investigation, closed by a dismissal. “lack of evidence”, remember the parliamentary commission of inquiry into the 2015 attacks. Later, in August 2015, the jihadist Reda Hame, Abdelhamid Abaaoud’s recruit, was arrested by the French authorities on his return from Syria. During his hearing, he reveals that an attack is planned against a rock concert hall. The threat is taken “very seriously by the French services” but stay “diffuse”, given the large number of festivals and rock concerts in France, also argues the commission of inquiry.
“No fault can be attributed to the police services for not having implemented a special security device around the Bataclan performance hall after August 2015 “, for its part ruled the administrative tribunal of Paris in 2018. The instance, seized by a thirty victims or relatives of victims, did not recognize the “responsibility” of the State and its services in the prevention of this attack. Neither failures on the part of the State in monitoring the terrorists behind the attacks of 13 November or failure to cooperate with the intelligence services of other countries.
But it was also around the intervention at the Bataclan on the evening of November 13, 2015 that questions were raised at the bar. Why did the soldiers of Operation Sentinel, present at the scene, not intervene, wondered a man whose daughter was killed in the concert hall. These controversies stem in part from the broadcast on Arte, a few days before the opening of the trial, of Shadows of the Bataclan. This controversial documentary, whose “approximations” have been criticized by some victims’ associations, tip of supposed “flaws” within institutions. The film is co-written by former Republican MP Georges Fenech, who there “speaks contradictory to the conclusions “ of the commission of inquiry of which he was the president, as noted by the media Les Jours (subscribers).
In the video, an anonymous witness, presented as “a former intelligence officer “, lends former Prime Minister Manuel Valls electoral calculations in the management law enforcement agencies intervening that evening. The former tenant of Matignon has announced his intention to file a complaint for “public defamation” against the Arte channel. The film also calls into question the triggering delays and the effectiveness of the assault led by the research and intervention brigade (BRI) in the auditorium, which nevertheless resulted in the release of all the hostages and the neutralization of the last two terrorists.
“Victims have the right to know if their loved ones could have been saved more quickly”, thinks Olivier Morice from franceinfo. THE‘civil party lawyer requested that several people interviewed in the documentary, including the former Paris police prefect Michel Cadot, be heard at the trial. At the hearing, the position of thelawyer earned him a tense exchange with the former head of the BIS, Christophe Molmy, who for his part stormed against a “unworthy report”.
“You have to have a little indulgence, it was a situation of chaos.”
Christophe Molmy, former head of the BRISeptember 22, before the Special Assize Court of Paris
During his testimony, the commissioner defended himself in the face of criticism pointing to the two hours that elapsed between the arrival of his unit, around 10:20 p.m., and the launch of the final assault, at 12:18 a.m. “It may seem very long, but we had to secure the ground floor, there were hundreds of people”, he justified. “I understand the wounded who had the feeling of waiting two hours. I apologize to them”, explained Christophe Molmy, who however insisted on recalling “the risks of an over-attack.”
“It is not from me that the criticisms will come about the possible dysfunctions, and I am not sure that this is the subject of this trial”, for his part reassured the president of the court. Since the start of the trial, Jean-Louis Périès has tried several times to reframe the debates, recalling the framework of the referral. “Our assize court has the function of examining the charges against each of the accused”, he explained from his introductory remarks. On the defense side, Martin Méchin, the lawyer forAli El Haddad Asufi, reminds franceinfo that it is above all about “trial of the accused”.
“We are not on the question of the responsibility of the State and the intelligence services.”
Martin Méchin, lawyer for the accused Ali El Haddad Asufito franceinfo
The lawyer, skeptical of the relevance of hearing François Hollande, fears a “misuse of the criminal trial “. The former head of state “is unable to provide answers to any ” questions for which the court is seized, further advances Martin Méchin. “The idea is not to have another trial than that of the terrorists but, at the same time, to determine very clearly the reasons why we can come to this.”, procrastinates his colleague from the civil parties, Gérard Chemla.
“Every time there is an attack, the same controversies come up. They are part of the democratic game”, conceded François Hollande in an interview with AFP, shortly before the opening of the trial. The ex-president does not deny either “the right of families of victims to hold account”. “One of the issues in the trial is that they have answers.”