the logbook of a former Bataclan hostage, week 17

Since September 8, 2021 the trial of the attacks of November 13 is held in Paris. David Fritz Goeppinger, victim of these attacks is now a photographer and author. He agreed to share via this logbook his feelings, in image and in writing, during the long months of this river trial, which began on Wednesday September 8, 2021 before the special assize court in Paris. Here is his account of the seventeenth week.

>> The Sixteenth Week Diary

Wednesday January 26. As often, questions follow my steps as I cross the Pont Neuf and I seriously begin to wonder if, when we get to the facts, some defendants will speak out at all. As a civil party, victim – and I have already said – it was difficult at first to visualize what my expectations of the trial were. But there are still days when the hearing continues to disappoint me and, to hear the first exchanges between the accused and the president, today’s hearing is no exception to what has become a rule.

After the usual summons concerning the great absentee from the box since the end of November, the hearing resumes and the president makes an update on the schedule, announcing the absence of witnesses over the next two days, including a Belgian magistrate involved in the investigation of the accused interviewed today. The magistrate justifies her absence and says “reserve the first of his testimony to the Belgian magistrates in the trial of the Brussels attacks (…)” The man questioned today is considered to be one of the logisticians of the November 13 attacks but, unlike some of the men present in the box, he has never been to Syria. He is also known in the investigation of another attack, that of the Thalys, on August 21, 2015, a trial in which he was sentenced to 25 years in prison. The president asks him to stand up and starts the usual introduction before interrogation when the man in the cubicle cuts him off to ask him to speak. The accused explains that he will not answer the questions because he believes that his word will always be considered suspect. He adds : “This start of the trial was difficult to live with, already because I still hadn’t cashed the other one. (…) Everything is considered a ruse, me since the beginning of the trial, we do not see what I live behind… I am no longer able to do it, I did it once, I am defeated.” The President insists that he answer the questions but the accused does not yield.

Even as the trial continues I feel like I’m stepping back and reliving the sixty-eighth day of the trial, two weeks ago, when another defendant exercised his right to remain silent. The president begins to read the minutes of the hearing and again, the same remarks as before – “There, we would have liked to have answers” – with a sigh supported by a disappointed and annoyed look over his rectangular glasses. Nicolas Braconnay, one of the three Advocates General, begins to read the questions he had planned and evokes a “a bit vain exercise”.

The declaration of Master Chemla, lawyer for civil parties, challenges me and echoes my anger. He wishes “return to this silence” and quotes the defendant: “For you justice has no ear, no listening.” The accused, in the cubicle, does not blink and barely looks at the tall lawyer and his black robe. “The people who came to give evidence were attacked by people who were part of a group, which you were close to (…) and one would think that if you were upset by that, one can imagine that you should have at least less accountable to them.” That may be the source of my anger, the fact that despite the exceptional justice system put in place for the trial, despite the size of the courtroom, the historic place hosting this trial historical, nothing seems to be able to convince the defendants to collaborate.

I would like to say to the defendants that if they believe that justice has no ears, we, the civil parties, do and we listen at all times and with attention to the words they utter, not to judge or attack, but to understand. Understand what we have experienced and continue to experience. We are neither judges nor magistrates nor lawyers, only people dazzled by the rays of light of a justice that we do not understand all the time but that we hear. Far be it from me to understand how people could find themselves so involved in events like those of 13-November, but what are we left with to try to glimpse the events? After the trial, will we have the chance to look again, collectively and judicially, at this dark night? The five weeks of depositions of the civil parties are only a fragment, yet so intense, of all the pain that we felt on the 13th and like yesterday, I have the sad impression that the trial has sometimes become an echo by the frustration and anger it engenders. Master Chemla concludes in the direction of the accused and advises him to answer the questions “like a brave man who faces his fate and that of the people whose existence he destroyed”.

After observations by Maître Kempf, defense lawyer, the president begins the reading of the hearing of witnesses absent from the hearing and announces a suspension

I barely have time to gulp down a coffee in a hurry and the hearing resumes. The accused’s brother is on the stand, a light gray jacket and a blue mask over his face. He describes his brother as calm, intelligent and “too empathetic”. And to continue: “He got carried away by people, he trusted too easily.” As often, the elements presented by the close witnesses show a personality or a piece of identity more lively than the accused himself, a sort of picture which could appear more complete. The turn of the first assessor, Frédérique Aline, to ask her questions. The magistrate goes on, increases the pace of the hearing and the man tries to answer. After a while, I hear him say: “I can say something, it’s personal, huh?” And to continue by abounding in the direction of the statements of his brother, at the start of the day: “I feel like we’re biased no matter what.” To questions from the court and from one of the general attorneys, the man seems to respond willingly but sometimes underlines his incomprehension in the face of the insistence of the actors in the trial on certain points. The questions continue and the witness answers willingly while I close the post of the day. The lawyers for the civil parties begin their questions and the interrogation is difficult to follow.

I leave the hall of auctions to finalize the writing in the hall of lost steps. Around me, lawyers are talking on the phone, their voices mingling with the background noise of the Palace. Behind the stained glass windows, night falls on Paris.

See you tomorrow.