November 13 trial: the harrowing experience of the family of a Chilean victim

Audio 02:22

For five weeks, the civil parties will take the stand at the trial of the November 13 attacks.

© RFI / François-Damien Bourgery

By: Marine de La Moissonnière Follow

5 mins

At the trial of the November 13 attacks, hearings of survivors and families of victims begin this Tuesday, September 28.

An important but trying moment,

especially

 when you don't speak French and you are far from your family.

Nancy and Rosario, the mother and sister of Luis Felipe Zschoche, a Chilean living in France killed in Bataclan, testify to this.

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Nancy, Luis Felipe's mother, thinks a lot about what she is going to say at the stand.

But she is not afraid to testify.

“ 

I have come from so far away that I cannot remain silent.

I will talk about my son and what I went through.

I will say how I feel.

I will have to be concrete and precise, and say everything I want to say.

 "

On the other hand, there is no question of addressing Salah Abdeslam, the only member of the November 13th commandos still alive, or the other accused. " 

What for

? It is not worth the trouble. I don't think they're going to repent. So far, they have not expressed the slightest remorse.

 "

Rosario, Nancy's daughter, will not be able to follow her mother's testimony. After a month spent in Paris with her family, she has to return to Chile to resume her work. And the webradio set up for civil parties does not work abroad. " 

I will try to obtain diplomatically that I am allowed to listen to Internet radio,"

assures Rosario.

And if that's not possible, then I'm going to have to follow the trial through my mother's stories and the accounts of our lawyers. I don't want to go home because I don't want to leave my mother alone. It hurts me. And then I really would have liked to attend all the hearings, like my mother

 ”

.

Nancy will stay in Paris until the verdict scheduled for next May. The French State covers part of its costs. For nine months, she puts her life on hold in a country that is not hers, far from her companion, her children and her two granddaughters without whom, she says, she would never have been able to overcome the past six years.

But attending the trial is essential for her. “ 

It's my duty as a mother to be here for my son,”

says Nancy.

It is also my right. I have been asking myself a lot of questions for six years and now I am finally getting answers. We never had access to the file. I have been surprised since the beginning of the trial, by the testimony so cruel, so cruel ... I would never have imagined such barbarism. And then I learned where my son was when he died with his wife. It was terribly painful. But it is necessary to know why and how these attacks happened. I need to know more.

 "

Nancy does not know, however, if this trial will help her move forward in her grief.

She doesn't think the verdict will ease her pain, but she hopes these crimes don't go unpunished and that it will bring her some peace.

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