Trial of the November 13 attacks: Michel Audiard at the helm
The entrance to the Court of Assizes in Paris.
(Drawing).
AFP - ERIC FEFERBERG
Text by: Nathanaël Vittrant
3 mins
90th day of hearing in the trial of the attacks of November 13, 2015. This Thursday, March 9, the special assize court of Paris resumes the hearing of the defendants on the period immediately preceding that of the attacks, between August and the beginning of November 2015, when the future terrorists arrived in Brussels and the cell was actively preparing the attacks.
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From our special correspondent at the Paris courthouse,
Ali El Haddad Asufi is standing in the box.
The afternoon is already well advanced when he begins to answer questions from the court.
He faces 20 years in prison.
Two contradictory portraits emerge.
On the one hand, he appears as the henchman of Ibrahim el Bakkraoui, one of the coordinators of the November 13 attacks.
The man he drove to the airport when he was leaving for Syria, for whom he found a hideout just before the attacks and for whom he went to the Netherlands to look for Kalashnikovs.
On the other hand, there is only a friend who is a little too faithful who is of service, spends late teenage evenings playing the PlayStation and who supplements the ends of the month by trafficking cannabis.
The truth, we will probably never know.
It will be necessary to be satisfied with the judicial truth.
What will the prosecution be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt?
“You might have fallen in love with him”
Often, Ali El Haddad Asufi repeats that he no longer remembers, that these meetings, these trips for which he is accused today took place more than six years ago, and that there was nothing abnormal about them. which justifies that he kept them in memory.
Before him, the childhood friend who lent his apartment to Bakkroui in October 2015 at his request was heard at the bar.
A character "high in color", as a lawyer will say, who quotes Céline, Camus or Desnos pell-mell, and launches into long monologues as poetic as they are pathetic.
I regret the time before the attacks, I may have been a drunk but I was happy
In the Paris file, he is only heard as a simple witness.
But in Brussels, in the case of the attack at Zaventem airport where Brahim Bakkraoui blew himself up with his brother in March 2016, he faces five years in prison.
From his testimony, we will remember, in addition to some colorful projections that Audiard would not have denied, that Bakkraoui – the robber on the run, the terrorist in the making – played chess with a bisexual alcoholic while listening to Maria Callas.
New proof for the defense that those who frequented him before the attacks could reasonably be unaware of his radicalization and his projects.
“
In hindsight, it was a wolf in sheep's clothing.
You might have fallen in love with him
, ”he says to a lawyer.
“
I don't think so, no… But that's not the point
,” replies the person concerned.
“Do you know what an anagram is?
»
The subject, for Ali El Haddad Asufi, is not only this apartment that he helped to make available to Ibrahim Bakkraoui.
It was also this stay in Rotterdam and this long conversation with his Dutch cousin about the "Clios" that he tried to obtain a few weeks before the attacks.
The prosecution still wants to see Kalashnikovs there.
He now claims it was cannabis.
The prosecutor is surprised: “
Three weeks to find five kilos of cannabis is a long time.
In a round trip to Rotterdam, in one phone call, you could find them…
”
"
I don't know, Mr. Prosecutor, we must not have the same contacts
", replies the accused tit for tat.
The final word is up to the defence.
“
Do you know what an anagram is, Mr. El Haddad
?
asks Me Martin Mechin to his client.
“
Clio is the anagram of kilo.
And machine guns are rarely sold by the kilo.
►
To read also:
Trial of the November 13 attacks: no new light on weapons
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