Belgian man accused of helping terrorist escape Paris denies his involvement

A Belgian man accused of helping Salah Abdeslam escape Paris after the November 2015 terrorist attacks has told a court he was not involved in the bombings and shootings and had no knowledge of them in advance.

Mohammed Amri said that Abdeslam’s older brother Brahim, who was a friend in Molenbeek , Belgium, had asked to borrow his car to go to Germany days before the attacks.

Amri, who had worked at Brahim Abdeslam’s bar Les Béguines in Molenbeek for three months, said he refused even though Abdeslam was insistent. Instead, he agreed to accompany Brahim Abdeslam to hire a car – the Belgian-registered Seat Leon was later identified by police as that used by one group of terrorists to drive around the French capital shooting at cafes and restaurants on the night of 13 November, killing 39 people.

Amri said Brahim had paid for the rented vehicle in cash and he was surprised when he parked it some way from the Abdeslam home. “He said he didn’t want people to see him with such a nice car,” Amri said.

“A Seat Leon … it’s not that nice a car,” the lead judge, Jean-Louis Périès, remarked.

Amri said Brahim Abdeslam had told him he was taking his family to Germany for a few days and he thought no more of it. “I had no idea the car was going to be used in the attacks. I learned later … I have nothing to do [with] this,” Amri said.

Quizzed by the attorney general, Nicolas Le Bris, about different statements he had made to investigators, Amri said he was in a state of shock after the attacks. “It was complicated,” he said.

On Thursday afternoon, the judges heard a request from lawyers representing the families of victims for photographs and audio tape of the attack on the Bataclan music venue be shown to the court.

The previous day, the victims and their families had packed the courtroom at the Palais de Justice in Paris to hear Salah Abdeslam, 32, explain what happened in the run-up to the attacks and on the night of 13 November 2015. Instead the accused invoked his right to silence.

Afterwards, Philippe Duperron, the president of a victims’ association and father of one of those killed at the Bataclan, accused Abdeslam of “mocking us”.

“I think he is showing off … we are in his hands and he was teasing us a few days before by talking then suddenly, he changes his mind,” he told FranceTV. “If we allow him to play this game we make ourselves victims all over again.”

The 2015 attacks killed 130 people and injured 350 others.

Source: The Guardian