At the trial of the November 13 attacks, the journey of Salah Abdeslam and a long moment of embarrassment – archyworldys

It is time for the trial of the November 13 attacks to move on to the next chapter. The one that is being written at the moment, and must end on Thursday, December 9, plunges the audience day after day into boredom and mediocrity, without advancing the debates. It has been almost two weeks since the screens of the Belgian investigators’ room evoke, from Brussels, the journey of the terrorists and the accused until August 2015 – the weeks leading to 13-November will be discussed from February 2022.

Family, radicalization, departure for Syria, return to Europe: these presentations are often duplicated with previous depositions, they are soporific because read in a monotonous voice, and generally remain superficial. The lawyers – defense and civil parties – rush into each imprecision, each hesitation, each silence to abuse the investigators and stir the knife in the wound of the carelessness and naivety of the Belgian police services in this story.

The feeling of unease inspired by these presentations peaked on Tuesday, December 7, with investigator no.^o 440 232 779, came to send in three quarters of an hour the course of Salah Abdeslam – who still refuses to attend the debates, to protest against the anonymity and the use of videoconferencing granted to these witnesses, whom we understand to have preferred to spare the audience storm.

Weaknesses in form

Discomfort with the form first of all: at odds with the spontaneous oral testimony in force at the Assizes, 440 232 779 read word for word a text that he seemed to discover; his point was illustrated by a PowerPoint with childish animations – a small plane passing from a Turkish flag to a Dutch flag to signify a flight from Istanbul to Amsterdam; he spoke about ten times “Airports” from Zaventem and Schiphol. The first time around, it sparked a few laughs in the room. The tenth, just awkward silence.

These weaknesses in the form would be anecdotal if they did not reflect a needy background. After the story already known about the youth of Salah Abdeslam and his relations with the other defendants, we have learned less about his radicalization than about the inability of the Belgian police to detect it, a failure symbolized by the hearing of February 28, 2015. at the Molenbeek police station.

A month earlier, his brother Brahim, a kamikaze from Comptoir Voltaire, visited Syria. The police were informed that Salah Abdeslam had also had plans to leave. But in front of them, reads the investigator 440 232 779, the latter “Contests any project of this kind”, evoked “Trips to Spain and Morocco to roam and live with locals”, and minimizes his friendly and ideological ties with Abdelhamid Abaaoud. Conclusion of the hearing report: “He does not present any outward sign of radicalism, whether in his dress, his physical appearance or his words. “

You have 43.24% of this article to read. The rest is for subscribers only.