For years, Salah Abdeslam remained silent about what happened on November 13, 2015, at the Bataclan Theater, in Paris cafes and on the National Stadium, and for the 130 people killed. After his trial began last year, he had some outbursts of extremist courage, but for months refused to answer most questions. Then this week, his words began to flow, in lengthy testimony that at times contradicts previous statements. His words from time to time caused outbursts of anger from the audience. The survivors and families of the victims, who hope the extensive trial will help them find justice and clarity, have had mixed reactions.
Abdeslam says he changed his mind at the last minute
Abdeslam said the mastermind of the attacks convinced him two days earlier to join the suicide bomber group. The next day, Abdeslam said Brahim’s brother showed him the coffee in north Paris where Salah was about to be shot in the crowd.
“It was a shock to me. I did not know how to react. I showed that I was not ready for it,” Abdeslam told the court. “He ended up convincing me.”
He was reportedly wearing an explosives belt on the night of November 13, as his brother and other Islamic State extremists who had fought in Syria spread around Paris in parallel attacks.
Abdeslam, right, and Mohamed Abrini, in the center, appear on a CCTV camera at a gas station in Ressons, France, on November 11, 2015, two days before the deadly attacks. (AFP / Getty Images)
“I go into the cafe, I order a drink,” Abdeslam said. “I was thinking. I looked at people laughing, dancing. And then I realized I could not do it.”
“I told myself I was not going to do it,” he said, citing a sense of “humanism.”
An explosives police officer told the court the suicide belt was defective, but Abdeslam testified that he turned it off.
Last month, he expressed his “regret” that he did not follow the attack.
But this week, he began to show signs of remorse.
“There are no words for that,” he said.
“You hate me in moderation”
Asked by his lawyer on Friday about his mother and the loss of her eldest son’s death, Abdeslam began to cry for the first time since the trial began in September, according to French media reports.
Abdeslam appears in an undated brochure available from the Belgian Federal Police. (Belgian Federal Police via AP)
“I ask you today to hate me in moderation,” he told the victims. “I express my condolences and ask for forgiveness for all the victims.”
He has also repeatedly asked for forgiveness from three of his colleagues who were tried for helping him escape.
“Abdeslam is trying to settle a mountain of contradictions in his head. He is trying to resolve them, but he will have a long way to go,” Georges Salin, whose daughter Lola was killed in Bataklan, told France-Info radio.
After leaving the cafe, Abdeslam described desperate attempts to contact friends for help and took a taxi to the Paris suburb of Montrouge, where he said he pulled the detonator out of his explosive vest and threw it in a trash can. He first hid near Paris and then fled with friends to Brussels, where he was arrested four months later.
He faces up to life in prison if convicted of murder.
The more than 2,400 political parties in the case will present their final arguments next month and the verdict is expected on June 24. It is one of the largest trials in modern French history.
