Trial of November 13: in the "chaos" of the attacked terraces

At La Belle Équipe, at least 163 balls were fired in less than two minutes on the evening of November 13, 2015. AFP - LOIC VENANCE

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4 min

At the November 13 trial, investigators came to detail on Monday their findings made on two of the terraces attacked that evening, thus closing the account of the first findings.

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At the helm, the investigator prefers to warn straight away: " 

I apologize if my words may seem cold or dehumanized, it's professional language that does that

 ".

In fact, his style clashes with that of his colleagues, who struggled last week to contain their emotion by recounting their

work after the attacks of the Bataclan

and other terraces.

But like those who preceded him, this policeman from the Versailles criminal brigade, who came to lend a hand to the Parisian services on the evening of the November 13 attacks, seems unable to find strong enough words to describe what he is doing. has assisted.

He speaks of " 

chaos

 ", of " 

absolute horror

 ", but that does not seem to be enough.

When his team arrives in front of La Belle Équipe, where 21 people have been killed, " 

there is a kind of silence which denotes the violence of the facts, it's a little confusing

 ", said this bearded man in a black suit, in his thirties. , who testifies anonymously.

The policeman begins by showing a video filmed by a local resident.

Twenty-eight seconds which show two of the three attackers beside their car, firing in bursts and piecemeal.

The terrace is not in the field.

The jihadists shout "Allah Akbar" and get back into their vehicle.

One is wearing orange sneakers.

It is Abdelhamid Abaaoud. 

After the video, the investigator shows the consequences of the shooting in a photo: a dozen bodies covered with colored sheets at the foot of the tables.

In the courtroom, sobs erupted.

Two birthdays

On the screen then appears a diagram of the position of the 13 bodies, identified by the letters A to M. Six other customers died in an improvised medical station in a nearby bar, two others in the hospital.

For each victim, the police officer details the injuries.

One " 

discovered on the back, injured in the neck, collarbone, abdomen and chest

 ", the other " 

in gun dog, injured at least four wounds

 ".

And he continues in the same neutral tone, body by body.

At La Belle Équipe, most of the victims, mostly in their thirties, knew each other.

Two birthdays were celebrated that day, recalls the investigator. 

The explosion of violence stunned the room again. At least 163 bullets were fired in less than 2 minutes, impacts found from floor to ceiling of the restaurant, and up to the second floor of the building. Five passing cars were also targeted. “They were shooting at anything that moved,” sums up the investigator, who adds a chilling episode. Just before the attack, the terrorists arrested two passers-by at a red light, telling them: " 

This evening ISIS has come to slaughter you

 ."

Once again, Salah Abdeslam will demand the floor to justify, again, these attacks which are for him only reprisals for the strikes by France in Syria.

We can go to war, but the door to dialogue must always remain open,

 " he dares, causing dismay and general laughter.

It is not by shooting Kalashnikovs at civilians that we dialogue,

 " cut the president.

Explosion in a cloud of feathers

A little later, another investigator comes to testify to what he saw at the café-restaurant Le Comptoir Voltaire, where Brahim Abdeslam blew himself up without killing anyone other than himself, but leaving eleven wounded. A 50-second video is shown. Even silent, it is striking. We see Brahim Abdeslam enter with a determined step, move towards the most populated part of the terrace, jostling the waitress in the process. She calls out to him, he turns around and, in a flash of light and a cloud of feathers - those of his jacket, in all likelihood - he explodes. In the courtroom, exclamations of amazement and fear resound, reports our special correspondent,

Laura Martel

.

The waitress is thrown to the ground, seriously injured, like the nearest customer. Hit by many nuts, he remains slumped in his chair while the other customers, injured or not, rush outside. “ 

It's incredible that there aren't more deaths,

 ” blows a civil party. Only the dorsal part of the belt exploded, points out the investigator. Brahim Abdeslam, he specifies, has a gaping wound on his kidney, but also traces of resuscitation. A doctor, believing he was a victim, tried to resuscitate him before discovering the rest of the bomb. This time, Salah Abdeslam shows no reaction.

These two testimonies come to close the sequence started Thursday, where two investigators came to detail their first observations on the first Parisian terraces attacked on Friday, November 13, 2015. There too, they had told of the astonishment, the silence, the tangled bodies, the stained soil blood ... Two videos were also shown: one showing the shooting at La Bonne Bière, the other at the restaurant Casa Nostra.

The hearing will resume on Wednesday.

To read also: Trial of November 13, week 2: describe the horror, the delicate exercise of the investigators

⚫ November 13: some benchmarks to understand the trial

General presentation of the trial and victims' expectations

Infographic: who are the alleged perpetrators and accomplices of the attacks

Podcasts: Shock waves, how to rebuild?

► Interview: François Hollande talks about “his” November 13

Report: the double punishment of French Muslims

Testimony: "A part of me died at the Bataclan"

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