At the trial of November 13, Salah Abdeslam recounts for the first time his night of wandering

Published on: 04/13/2022 – 22:40 The only survivor of the November 13 commandos, Salah Abdeslam, for the first time, recounted his evening in detail on Wednesday at his trial. The accused, who had claimed on several occasions that his belt had not worked, now claims to have “given up” to blow himself up out of “humanity”. “I’m going to explain myself because this is the last time I will have the opportunity to do so”. During his final interrogation at the trial of the November 13 attacks, Salah Abdeslam, for the first time, told in detail, Wednesday, April 13, his version of the events. The last time, the only member still alive from the commandos had refused to answer questions, invoking his right to remain silent. “It’s because I didn’t feel listened to”, he says to the president of the special assize court in Paris, Jean-Louis Périès. He does not “promise anything” but will say a lot this time on his “mission”, “the objective” which was set for him on November 13, 2015, the night of the attacks which will kill 130 people in Paris and Saint-Denis. “I’m going to go to this café (in the 18th arrondissement of Paris) , I’m going to order a drink, I’m going to look at the people around me and I said to myself ‘No, I’m not going to do it'”, relates Salah Abdeslam after a few minutes, blue and white striped polo shirt and dark vest on the back. Return to Belgium or blow yourself up “I saw people laughing, dancing, I understand that I was not going to do it”, adds the 32-year-old Frenchman. After having “given up”, he “took back the car” with which he had conveyed the three suicide bombers to the Stade de France. “I drive, I drive, I drive”, but the car “breaks down”. “With an explosive belt, I’m burned”, continues Salah Abdeslam, very talkative in the box. “Two solutions are available to me: either I go back to Belgium, or I go all the way and I blow myself up”. He says he wandered around Paris, called “everyone” to be picked up, but “it’s the total unforeseen”, the “stunned”. He then takes a taxi to go south of the capital. He got rid of the belt in Montrouge and walked to Châtillon, where he was picked up in the early morning of November 14 by two Belgian “buddies”, now his co-defendants. Salah Abdeslam maintains that he only integrated the planned attacks in Paris only “at the last moment”, on November 11, 2015, and that he did not know the details, just that he should “blow himself up”. “It’s a shock for me”, “I had to go to Syria”, assures the main accused, with a black beard collar. “I will end up accepting”. President Jean-Louis Périès tries to find out more. “I only know what I’m going to do,” maintains the accused. “My brother (Brahim, future terrace killer, editor’s note), he had a belt, a Kalashnikov, I know he’s going to shoot, I know he’s going to blow himself up but I don’t know the targets.” that it was terraces, a concert hall?”, relaunches the president. “No, no”, sweeps Salah Abdeslam. “I gave up out of humanity, not out of fear” The court recalls that he told several relatives that he had failed in his mission because his belt had not worked. “It was a lie that I couldn’t get rid of throughout my run. So I took it as a reality,” he said. To the other members of the jihadist cell, he is “ashamed” to tell the truth. But “I gave up out of humanity, not out of fear”, assured Salah Abdeslam later. He “did not dare to do it, that’s all”, had said before him his childhood friend Mohamed Abrini, who considers that the defective belt is “the Hollywood version” of the story. A little before 8:00 p.m., President Périès turns to the court. “We may stop there for the evening…” Big smile in Salah Abdeslam’s box: “With me, you don’t know what to expect. Sometimes I talk, sometimes I don’t talk… “.The president will end up suspending the hearing one hour later. The interrogation of Salah Abdeslam will resume Thursday, in the second part of the afternoon. With AFP