Sylvie Claire / September 10, 2021
What exactly happened on the evening of November 13, 2015? On Friday, on the third day of the trial of the deadliest attacks ever to hit France, the special assize court of Paris will attempt to unravel the chain of tragedy.
President Jean-Louis Périès has planned to read his report summarizing the 542 volumes of the case. According to a judicial source, the reading could last nine hours.
The investigators up to 1,000 at the beginning of the investigation and the five anti-terrorist magistrates seized had quickly established that the attacks had been coordinated from Belgium. They also identified their sponsor in Syria: Osama Atar, a Belgian nicknamed Abu Ahmad al-Iraki, a prominent member of the EI, who likely died in 2017 in a coalition strike in the Iraqi-Syrian zone.
The president will speak before the victims there are more than 1,800 civil parties who are finally waiting for justice to be done.
In the dock, 14 men will be as attentive, or ready to be noticed as Salah Abdeslam has been since the opening of the trial, to the great displeasure of the civil parties, shocked by his attitude.
The 31-year-old French-Moroccan, who is the only member of the commandos still alive, was almost silent throughout the trial and loudly claimed to belong to the Islamic State. I gave up any profession to become a fighter for the Islamic State, said Salah Abeslam, accused of complicity in terrorist crimes and facing life imprisonment.
On Thursday, he reiterated this by launching a new diatribe. I do not support your justice, he claimed.
Jean-Louis Périès pledged to make the historic and extraordinary trial of November 13 an exemplary one, with respect for the norm, for the rights of everyone, starting with the rights of the defense.
Faced with Abdeslam's provocations, he has so far responded with a calmness not devoid of determination, not intending that he confiscate the floor. Mr. Abdeslam, you have had five years to express yourself (before the French investigating judges, editor's note), you did not want to do so and that is your strictest right. I hear today that you are going to do it and that's fine, but it's not the time, he told him on Thursday, before cutting off the microphone.
The trial is scheduled to last nine months.