While the trial of the November 13 attacks opened almost seven months ago, the specially composed assize court is examining this week Salah Abdeslam's flight and his life in the hideouts until his arrest. on March 18, 2016.
During his last interrogation, the only living member of the commandos had decided to remain silent.
He had nevertheless affirmed that he had given up blowing himself up.
However, the analysis of his belt shows that it was faulty.
This Wednesday, the accused agreed to answer all questions from the court.
An attitude that goes against his past behavior during the trial.
At the specially composed court of assizes in Paris,
“I park the car, I go into the café, I sit down, I order a drink, I see people laughing, dancing.
I think, I understand that I'm not going to do it, I get back in the car, I drive.
After making use of his right to silence during his previous interrogation, Salah Abdeslam agreed to deliver "his truth" on the night of November 13, 2015. What does it matter if the specially composed assize court had initially planned to question him about "the aftermath" and about his life spent in Brussels hideouts, until his arrest on March 18, 2016.
This Wednesday, the magistrates therefore went up the wire of the calendar.
Salah Abdeslam does not hide it, he was planning to go to Syria in the summer of 2015, thus imitating his older brother Brahim.
But the latter, recently returned to Belgium, dissuades him.
"He will explain to me that it is risky to leave, that the fighting there is raging and he will ask me to help him work", specifies the thirty-something, slicked back hair and thick beard, dressed in a sailor shirt. .
This "work" takes the form of escorts of several members of the cell - he recognizes two of the five trips for which he is accused - and rentals in his name of cars and hideouts.
However, he assures, two days before the attacks, he was still unaware that major attacks were planned in Paris.
“I gave up out of humanity”
This November 11, when he returns from France with his older brother, “everything changes”, he says.
Brahim tells him that Abdelhamid Abaaoud, his childhood friend and one of the most wanted jihadists in Europe, is in Belgium and wants to see him.
Salah Abdeslam complies and finds the coordinator of the cell: “He tells me about the plan to carry out attacks in France.
He doesn't tell me the targets just that I should wear an explosive belt.
“In a calm voice, the tone posed, the one who has sometimes distinguished himself by his provocations and his excesses, confides his “shock” and his feeling of being in a “dead end”.
His name was used for many tasks related to the organization of these crimes, so he is involved.
It is now impossible for him to go to Syria.
“He will convince me and I will go.
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According to him, he only learned during the night when he returned to Brussels, the extent of these attacks.
He, he says, was only aware of “his mission”.
In this case, drop off three of the terrorists at the Stade de France and then continue on to his "objective", a café in the 18th arrondissement of the capital.
The place, he recalls, was “not very big” but crowded and located at the corner of a street.
Equipped with his explosive vest, he enters and orders a drink: "I'm going to look at the people around me, I'm going to say to myself, no, I'm not going to do it.
“And let go:” I gave up out of humanity.
Never, he says, had he heard of the Bataclan.
Even his brother, Brahim, a member of the terraces commando who then blew himself up at the Comptoir Voltaire, did not confide his plans to him.
“I just know he's going to shoot, he's going to blow himself up, but I don't know where.
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A "lie" which he did not know how to "get rid of"
The rest of Salah Abdeslam's career is more "confused".
After abandoning his broken down vehicle, he buys a mobile phone and dials one of the few numbers he knows by heart: that of his friend Mohamed Amri.
He summons him to bring him back to Belgium, even shows himself "authoritarian" when he declines, before changing his mind a few hours later.
While waiting for him, Abdeslam stayed for part of the night, took a taxi to Montrouge, where he explained that he left his belt in a “discreet” place after removing the trigger and the battery.
“I will hide it as best I can,” he insists.
Then, he buys a “Quick” even if he is “not hungry” and spends the evening with young people from Châtillon.
A version weakened by numerous expert reports and testimonies, collected during the investigation.
If the button of the belt has indeed disappeared, the analyzes have shown that even without this, the vest was inoperative, the igniter being severed.
Why did he tell the other members of the cell or his relatives that he had failed because his belt had not worked?
“I can't tell them that I gave up, I dare not tell them, I'm a little ashamed, he says.
It's a lie that I gave at the start and that I couldn't get rid of.
What about his letter of allegiance found in one of the hideouts?
Again, he admits having written it while ensuring that he was caught in this same spiral of lies.
Our full case file
His friend and co-accused, Mohamed Abrini, who never ceased to clear him during his interrogations, remembers having seen arriving on November 14 in the hideout in which he himself was an "exhausted" man, the “almost white complexion”.
Barely past the doorstep, Salah Abdeslam would have been "yelled" by one of the masterminds of the attacks.
"He told her why didn't you take a lighter or a cigarette to blow yourself up?"
“recalls the Belgian.
Asked about this scene, Abdeslam moderates, explains that he was mainly blamed for the danger he posed to the other members of the cell.
What did he do for five months?
Did he plan to participate in the follow-up operations?
Assure him that no, swears that he always had in mind to go to Syria, that he did not even know what operations were taking shape,
that he has never seen any explosives.
However, four days after his arrest, on March 18, 2016, his hideout comrades will take action in Brussels.
32 dead and 340 injured.
Justice
Trial of November 13: "At no time was the link made between Salah and the attacks", assure the defendants who exfiltrated Abdeslam
Justice
Trial of the November 13 attacks: Supporting photos and soundtrack, immersed in the horror of the Bataclan massacre
Justice
Attacks of November 13
Terrorist attacks in Paris
Salah Abdeslam
Court case
Terrorism