Anger in Paris court as terrorist Abdeslam asks for chance to start his life over

For the second day at the Paris attacks trial, evidence from surviving terrorist Salah Abdeslam dominated proceedings. Less sure of himself on Thursday, in the face of relentless questioning, Abdeslam finally asked for forgiveness and a second chance. That provoked an angry reaction from some on the public benches in the Paris courtroom.

Abdeslam had to wait.

Before the sole surviving member of the ten-man terror squad which attacked Paris in November 2015 could continue his testimony, we first heard from two of his co-accused.

Yassine Atar is a nervous, tense individual, much given to exaggerated body language and bursts of feigned laughter. He is suspected of having helped the terrorist attackers before and after the Paris massacres. He faces life imprisonment if found guilty.

His friends and relatives are no great help to his cause.

Atar’s older brother, Oussama, is the man suspected of having planned and directed the Paris attacks from Islamic State headquarters in Syria. Oussama is also accused in this trial, absent because presumed dead in a drone strike in 2017.

Yassine was frequently in contact with other suspected terrorists, notably convicted Thalys attacker Mohamed Bakkali and the Belgian suicide bombers Ibrahim and Khalid El Bakraoui.

Her has explanations for everything. His contacts with Bakkali were related to the sale of a defective vacuum cleaner; those with Khalid El Bakraoui concerned a land deal in Morocco.

He says the case against him is “ridiculous”.

Ali El Haddad Asufi is a tougher, more stable individual. He listens with his head on one side, eyes unblinking, like a bird of prey. You would not want to face him in a fight.

He is suspected of having supplied some of the weapons used in the Paris attacks. He could go to jail for 20 years if found guilty.

The case against him is thin, given that investigators have never been able to trace the source of the kalashnikovs used by the November 2015 killers.

Unfortunately, Haddad, a driver at Brussels airport whose main business seems to have been the import and sale of narcotics, was also on close terms with Ibrahim El Bakraoui and the Paris terrace killer, Abdelhamid Abaaoud.

Asked if he could be described as Ibrahim El Bakraoui’s “man of confidence”, Haddad became darkly angry.

“He blew himself up in the airport where I worked. He could have killed me. You call that a sign of confidence?”

The witness and his defence team also had angry words for the Belgian investigators who, they claim, made selective use of evidence relating to Ali El Haddad Asufi when preparing the file for the Paris court.

Why, the defence wondered, was there no mention of the information from a Belgian police source that an “arms dealer of Italian or Albanian origin”, based in Brussels, could have supplied the weapons needed by the Bakraoui brothers?

And what of the statement by Belgian prosecuting judge, Isabelle Panou, that she “took only those parts of the evidence that interested her”?

Ali El Haddad Asufi was left to observe that “I have never understood why I was implicated in the Paris attacks trial.”

And then it was the turn of Salah Abdeslam.

The witness was asked by court president Jean-Louis Périès if he felt that the unfavourable media image of which Abdeslam complained on Wednesday might have been a direct result of the prisoner’s five-year refusal to answer questions.

“It was to protect myself. You know I was shot during my arrest. I was questioned immediately after surgery. I’d been on the run for four months.

“We were told to say nothing. That’s what everyone said in the hideouts.

“So the media created the character everyone wanted to see … a monster completely devoid of humanity. I let that image of myself develop.”

Speaking quietly, clearly less at ease than during his evidence on Wednesday, Abdeslam remained calm, even when questioned by the very aggressive Didier Seban, one of the lawyers representing the families of the victims.

“I don’t believe you,” Seban bluntly told the witness, in relation to Abdeslam’s claim that he was the sole attacker sent to blow himself up in a cafe in the 18th district of Paris.

The other targets were hit by squads of three terrorists each.

“I’m telling the truth as I see it,” the accused replied. “Whoever wants to believe me is welcome. If you don’t want to listen to me, I couldn’t care less.”

“You want to keep control of your little game, is that it?”

“That’s your interpretation of what I’m saying.”

And then the accused spoke directly to the families and friends of those who died or were injured on the night of 13 November 2015.

“Don’t allow resentment to destroy you from the inside,” he told them. “You are in a position of force. I am the weak one.

“You have the possibility to forgive and to move on. You can give me the chance to, perhaps some day, rejoin my family and the people I love.”

At which stage, an isolated angry shout of “Never, never,” was heard from the rear of the courtroom.

The trial continues.

Source: RFI