For Georges Salienes, honorary president of the association 13onze15 Fraternité et Vérité, the only surviving member of the November 13 commandos, tried “to reinforce its defense strategy” by only speaking at certain times during Wednesday’s hearing.
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“Salah Abdeslam practiced a kind of intermittent right to silence” Wednesday March 30, analyzed on franceinfo Georges Salines, the honorary president of the association 13onze15 Fraternité et Vérité. After a day of hearings at the November 13 trial where the only surviving member of the commandos sometimes asserted his right to silence, this father of a Bataclan victim believes that it is “a strategy of avoidance so as not to answer the questions that bother him”.
franceinfo: How was this new hearing day?
George Saline: It was a funny day but, oddly enough, I expected to get what we got. Finally, Salah Abdeslam has an avoidance strategy so as not to answer questions that bother him. He practiced a kind of intermittent right to silence while trying to reinforce his defense strategy. He says he was not expected in the commandos, that he knew nothing, that everything was done at the last moment. I still think that’s very unbelievable.
He ended up responding to a civil party lawyer who used gentleness…
I think she went a little too far in this role because in the end, she only got the answers that suit Salah Abdeslam. In my opinion, it didn’t allow you to really move towards the truth, except perhaps when she confronted him with his contradictions. If he maintains that he gave up his explosive belt, that means he lied to his friends in Belgium that the belt didn’t work. On this point, he was obliged to go a little bit to the end of his reasoning but it is the only moment that I found interesting.
How do you find his attitude?
Salah Abdeslam has the gift of annoying a lot of people. For example, in the second part of his interrogation, concerning the expertise of his vest, he explained that he himself had removed the push button and the battery to prevent someone from inadvertently triggering it. It was almost as ironic as yesterday when Mohamed Abrini explained to us that he had finally saved a lot of lives by giving up participating in the commandos. Salah Abdeslam has posed as a champion of the prevention of domestic accidents, it’s still quite laughable.