Salah Abdeslam
On Friday, the testimony of Salah Abdeslam, the main surviving defendant in the November 13, 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris and Saint-Denis, concluded after three days. After initially refusing to speak, Abdeslam finally broke down on the stand Friday and apologized to the victims and their families. He insisted that he backed out of blowing himself up on that night in 2015. Earlier, he had told his co-conspirators that the suicide belt had malfunctioned.
The below article from the Belgian French-language daily, La Libre is translated by Fousesquawk.
Salah Abdeslam cracks at the trial of the Paris attacks. "I want to present my condolences and my apologies to all the victims".
The last interrogation of Salah Abdeslam continued Friday in front of the criminal court of Paris in the November 13 attacks trial.
AFP and editorial staff
Posted 4-15-2022 at 16:13. Updated 4-15-2022 at 23:09
After having recounted his evening of November 13 on Wednesday and Thursday and responding to the questions of the Court and the (interested) parties, the principal suspect of the attacks addressed himself one last time to the victims on Friday. In tears, Salah Abdeslam presented his condolences and apologies to the victims of the attacks.
"I want to present my condolences and my apologies to all the victims, the 32-year-old Frenchman declared from the dock, tears on his cheeks. "I know that the hate remains (...) I ask you today to detest me with moderation."
"I ask you to forgive me," he stated.
The final interrogation of Salah Abdeslam had begun early Wednesday evening before the special criminal court of Paris and continued Thursday. It concluded Friday afternoon with questions from the defense. The principal defendant maintained throughout the three days that he was supposed to blow himself up in a bar in the 18th arrondissement, but that he had "backed out" at the location after seeing the young people who looked like him and were having a good time.
Questioned by his lawyer, Olivia Ronen, Salah Abdeslam also stated that he did not "regret" finally backing out of blowing himself up on the evening of November 13. "Do you regret not having the courage to go all the way?" Attorney Olivia Ronen, one of his lawyers, asked him. "I do not regret it, I didn't kill these people, and I am not dead," he replies. "I tell myself....if they only knew what they just missed."
It was in invoking the suffering of his mother that he began to cry. "I would like to say today that this story of November 13 is written with the blood of the victims. It is their story, and I played a part. They are connected to me, and I am connected to them," Salah Abdeslam continues, his voice trembling, before presenting his apologies.
He also asks the three defendants on trial for aiding in his escape after the attacks to "forgive" him. "I didn't want to drag them into this," One of them, who is not in custody, then leaves the courtroom, his eyes filled with tears.
"I know this will not heal you," Salah Abdeslam concludes, black beard and dressed in a grey sweatshirt. "But if this can do you any good, if I have been able to do good to just one victim, then for me, that is a victory."
"That is all I have to say," then addressing his attorney. The chief judge (president), Jean-Louis Peries, suspends the hearing. In the courtroom, no reaction on the sparse benches.
Mixed (reactions ) from victims
"It's a surprise," reacts George Salines outside, whose daughter was killed in the Bataclan Concert Hall in Paris, and who seems shaken. Forgiveness, "it's important that he asks for it...we will think about it."
"I think he was sincere," says Cedric, for his part, a survivor of the attacks, who stresses, however, the "paradoxical" character of Salah Abdeslam, an "unfinished" jihadist, who seems to regret what he did while being unable to condemn the actions of the other commandos or of the Islamic State group.
"Each has their own view of this testimony and their analysis of these tears. Neither my clients nor I were moved by this exercise of style," (reacted) Attorney Gerard Chemla, the lawyer for some 100 victims.
In this "constructed and polished speech", he "cried for himself and his friends, not for the victims," he added.
At the beginning of the day, a lawyer for the civil parties had reminded Salah Abdeslam that he had complained about the "erroneous image" given to him. So, "how would you like to be remembered?"
"I don't want to be remembered," Salah Abdeslam had responded. "I want to be forgotten forever. I did not choose to be who I am today."
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