Trial of November 13, 2015: hatred and contested victims
Journalists stand in front of the courtroom built especially for the trial of the November 13 attacks, in the Palais de Justice in Paris, September 2, 2021 © Thomas Coex, Paris
Text by: RFI Follow
4 mins
At the trial of the attacks of November 13, 2015, the pleadings of the lawyers of the civil parties continue.
On the 132ᵉ day of the trial, we were able to hear the lawyer for the victims' association Life for Paris and the representative of "forgotten" victims.
Transcript of hearing, Nathanaël Vittrant.
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“
Civil party lawyers who reverse the course of a hearing are like flying fish, they exist, but they are not the majority of the species
.
Me Jean-Marc Delas, paraphrasing Michel Audiard sets the tone.
He did not reverse the course of the trial, but offered his observations, fine and without excessive emphasis.
“
We could hear that the civil parties had taken up a lot of space.
Too much space perhaps.
But you saw very few serious injuries at this bar.
For some the pain is so unbearable that they couldn't make the trip.
A way of remembering that the Court only had to hear part of the pain of the victims.
“
Eloquence is the discipline of shouting
,” he says, quoting an illustrious lawyer.
“
There was a very fine eloquence from all the victims in this trial.
They made a great effort to discipline their cry.
Me Delas then returns to the theme of hatred, developed during a previous plea.
“
You will not have my hatred, it is a magnificent ideal.
But expecting this trial to allow hatred to disappear is impossible
, ”continues the lawyer.
“
There is the same relationship between hate and justice as between fear and courage, justice is dominating your hate.
We must forgive those who cannot overcome their hatred.
He concludes by quoting the book by Arthur Dénouveaux, current president of Life for Paris and Antoine Garapon: “
The victims arouse our pity.
They deserve better than that.
»
Before him, we had also been able to hear about the "forgotten" victims of the attacks: the inhabitants of 48 rue de la République in Saint-Denis, where the police carried out the assault 5 days after November 13, in a building where two of the terrorists had taken refuge.
"
The assault is given in the night without any precautions being taken to protect the inhabitants of the building who have experienced a situation comparable to that of the inhabitants of Mariupol
", begins Me Claudette Eleini.
“
My clients were stuck for 5 hours during the shooting, when they came out they were pointed at by the police.
Another who had been asked to raise his arms to the window was shot in the elbow.
At the hospital, he was given an obligation to leave French territory
.
»
►
To read also Trial of the attacks of November 13: the forgotten of the assault of Saint-Denis
The lawyer speaks of “
contested
” victims, since until now the justice system has refused to consider the inhabitants as victims of terrorism and they have only been authorized in this trial to bring civil parties only on a provisional basis.
While the victims of November 13 were immediately surrounded, accompanied, compensated, those of November 18 received “
no psychological or legal aid, evacuated without consideration, a simple blanket on their back, relocated for a time in a gymnasium.
“
They were humiliated and robbed
“, continues the lawyer.
This trial, she recalls, nevertheless includes the facts up to November 18, 2015. And it would not occur to anyone to dispute the link between the events of November 13 and the two terrorists who blew themselves up five days later in the Saint-Denis building: Abdelhamid Abaaoud, one of the masterminds of the attacks, and Chakib Akrouh, his henchman, two of the killers on the Parisian terraces.
"
The prosecution, by challenging the inhabitants of 48 rue de la République in Saint-Denis their status as victims of terrorism, inflicts further suffering on them
", insists the lawyer.
She recalls that Françoise Rudetzki, a figure in the fight for the recognition of victims of terrorism, to whom the President of the Republic paid a national tribute the day before, had remained "
speechless
" when she learned of it.
“
This trial is their last chance to see this situation rectified.
I ask you to give them back their dignity.
»
►
To read the transcripts of the trial of the November 13 attacks here
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