November 13 trial: "It's not so nice to be a victim"
The pleadings of the lawyers of the civil parties ended this Tuesday at the trial of November 13.
© ALAIN JOCARD/AFP
Text by: Nathanaël Vittrant Follow
3 mins
The pleadings of the lawyers of the civil parties ended this Tuesday at the trial of the attacks of November 13, 2015. During nine days of hearing, they pleaded for the direct and indirect victims of these attacks which left 132 dead.
Record of hearing.
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From our special correspondent at the Paris courthouse,
One last time they spoke.
They took turns at the helm to talk about their clients.
"
I carry your voice Benjamin
", begins Me Dorothée Bisaccia Bernstein.
He who was locked in the toilets of the Bataclan, who kept the door closed at all costs.
“
Others came knocking, begging you to open, and you didn't open.
You were too afraid that it was a trick of the terrorists.
You didn't open.
You have to live with that.
»
Like this other who said "
shut
up" to someone who was dying.
“
Shut up.
And she lives with it.
Six years of nightmare wondering if these were the last words she heard [...]
Who in his life had to come across his own monster inside?
Who deserves to know this?
It's
not so nice to be a victim.
"
This suffering of the victims, we have been receiving it in our offices for more than six years
", continues Me Josserand-Schmidt.
"
The word of the victims is not always beautiful and resilient, it can also be violent, imbued with a rage turned towards oneself
".
Not enough explanations from the defendants
The lawyer had marked the hearing in March
by bringing out the silence
in which Salah Abdeslam, the only surviving member of the November 13 commandos, had locked himself up.
“
Interrogating him is not easy, but we listen to him because his silence hurts more than his words.
The lawyer regrets that the defendants provided so few explanations to the victims and left so many questions unanswered.
“
But it's not too late, the defendants will have the last word.
There will still be time.
»
This Tuesday, the case of Amar, a Kabyle who still dreams of acquiring French nationality, was mentioned.
A waiter at the Carillon, he continues to smile at everyone, but he takes to his heels at the slightest unexpected noise, “
like a few days ago when a tray full of glass fell.
He ran.
Some laughed, they don't all know
.
The difficult inclusion of foreign and non-French-speaking civil parties
There was also talk of foreign civil parties like these two mothers, Chilean and Spanish, united by the loss of a son at the Bataclan and by the fact that they do not speak French.
"
They couldn't imagine for a single minute that this trial was going on without her
," says their lawyer Me Clémence Witt.
Who tells how
this mother arrived from Chile
on September 8 in the early hours of the trial to become a civil party and that she did not leave.
The lawyer also recalls that the Court only provided at the last minute a device for the translation of the proceedings.
Still need to move to Paris.
While the attacks affected more than 20 nationalities,
the web radio
which enabled so many victims to follow the hearings remotely is still only accessible in London.
"
The chancellery had quite simply forgotten the victims residing abroad
", denounces the lawyer.
Me Ricard evokes his Irish clients, kept at a distance and sent back 40 years when the only doctor trained in the traumas they go through has his experience
of the troubles in Northern Ireland
.
And then there was the question of Guillaume.
“
When he left the Bataclan, a rope was already around his neck
,” said Josserand-Schmidt.
“
She squeezed, squeezed, squeezed until he couldn't breathe
.
Guillaume suffered from post-traumatic stress, he killed himself in 2017. In 2019, he was officially recognized as the 131st victim of terrorist attacks.
They are now 132.
►Also read: November 13 trial: a few messages and a bottle in the sea
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Justice
Trial of the attacks of November 13