Salah Abdeslam, the main accused in the trial of the November 13 attacks, risks irreducible life imprisonment and his lawyers, Martin Vettes and Olivia Ronen, will have the difficult task of defending him on Friday June 26, the last day of the pleadings. It also worried Master Ronen’s mother a lot that she was defending public enemy number 1. She, not at all. With her colleague, the tough but discreet Olivia Ronen, 32, will try to save her client from life imprisonment.
>> Portrait: Olivia Ronen, Salah Abdeslam’s lawyer who “swims against the tide” in the trial of the November 13 attacks
Salah Adbeslam is the only surviving member of the commandos that struck Paris and Saint-Denis. He is the only one, the “tenth man” of the attacks which left 130 dead, to be tried as a co-author of the attacks. After a relentless indictment, the National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office (Pnat) requested incompressible life imprisonment, a very rare sentence handed down only four times and which prevents any adjustment of sentence.
Salah Abdeslam’s revelations at the hearing are far from having convinced the prosecution when he finally delivered, for the first time after six years of silence after seven months of debates, the detailed account of his evening of November 13 : a suicide attack in a bar in the 18th arrondissement of Paris, which he gave up at the last minute, “out of humanity”, he said.
There is no doubt that his defense will be based on this ambiguity, this double face of Salah Abdeslam torn between two identities. Party animal at the time of the attacks, “soldier of God” self-proclaimed today. But for the Advocates General, Salah Abdeslam has not given up. He did try to blow his belt. He has the blood of all the victims on his hands.
Salah Abdeslam’s behavior has evolved throughout these ten months of hearing. On the first day of the trial, when President Jean-Louis Périès asks him to state his identity, Salah Abdeslam belches in the box. Dark look, almost hallucinated. “I am an Islamic State fighter.” The room quivers.
Alternately provocative, mute, he gradually gave way to a more balanced accused, calculating each of his words, each of his effects. Over time
Salah Abdeslam seems to have tamed his trial. To the point of ending his last interrogation in tears, apologizing to the victims. “I know it’s not going to cure you, but if it can do you any good, if I could do any good for one of the victims, then for me it’s a victory.”
The verdict is expected Wednesday, June 29. Before that, the court will give the floor one last time to the 14 defendants tried in their presence – six are by default – on Monday morning.