At the special Assize Court of Paris,
Almost seven years after November 13, 2015, Mohamed Amri still wonders: “I wonder why he called me? Ex-smoker of slow-flowing hash, this former employee of the Samu social in Molenbeek and car lover was not Salah Abdeslam’s best friend. Close, however, to his older brother, Brahim, who died in the attack on the Voltaire counter (11th), Mohamed Amri was the only one that night to have responded to the call for help from the sole survivor of the commandos.
After dropping off the terrorists in front of the Stade de France enclosure and then wandering around the 18th arrondissement, Salah Abdeslam is desperate and desperately looking for a way to return to Belgium. At 10:31 p.m., he dials Amri’s number. The beginning of the “nightmare” for this 33-year-old defendant who was appearing for having brought Abdeslam back and thus made possible his run which will last for many months.
The tears of Salah Abdeslam
This November 13, 2015, however, Mohamed Amri is a “happy” man. “I had received a call from the Samu to return to work. I was so happy, ”he slips to the court. His service had started several hours ago when at 10:31 p.m., a French number appeared on his phone. “This call is my nightmare which begins but I did not know it yet”, continues Amri, white shirt and monotonous voice. At the other end of the line, Salah Abdeslam cries, explains to him that he has just “crashed” in the car, that he is in France, “that he is in deep shit” and that he needs help. to be brought back to Belgium. “I had never seen him cry. I told myself that his accident must have ended in a fight, that he had been beaten up and that he was ashamed, ”analyzes Mohamed Amri.
At that time, he assures her, he knew nothing of the attacks committed on the other side of the border. It was later, in the offices of the Samu, that he discovered the first images of the attacks. At 11:11 p.m., his wife also informed him that shootings had taken place in the French capital. On duty until 2 a.m., Amri is trying to find a solution to help Abdeslam: “He called me back, he insisted and asked me if there was someone else to pick me up. This is where the second defendant comes in, Hamza Attou, a 21-year-old drug dealer, also questioned for the last time on Tuesday by the specially composed assize court. Here again, bad pickaxe for Abdeslam: “I had no car and no license”, explains Attou at the helm.
“Shock” and “Fear”
Until the end of Amri’s service, the young Molenbeekois dealer exchanged numerous times with Abdeslam. For lack of other solutions explained the two accused, the duo finally took the road aboard the Golf d’Amri in the direction of France to recover the only survivor of the commandos. On the road, the two men chained the joints, music at the bottom: “It was an ordinary trip”, assures Hamza Attou who learns, at the bend of a stop at a petrol station, that attacks took place in France on same evening. “At no time, leaving Brussels, did we make the link between Salah and the attacks, swears Mohamed Amri, if we had gone there knowing that, it’s like taking a one-way ticket to prison. »
This link, they say, was imposed on them brutally when they arrived in France, in the southern suburbs of Paris, in Châtillon. It is here that they find Abdeslam. “When he gets in the car, that’s when he tells us he lied, there was no crash, no car and he had us come to bring him back to Brussels (…). He tells us that he is one of the ten people who committed the attacks, that his brother is dead, that he wanted to blow himself up too but that it did not work, ”says the former Samu employee.
If their stories varied several times during the investigation, Attou like Amri describe a Salah Abdeslam “stressed, nervous, agitated”: “He was not himself. He was breathing hard, he was sweaty, a little aggressive, ”insists Hamza Attour at the helm. Both evoke the same “shock”, the “fear”, the “tetany” caused by the story of their neighborhood friend. ” Afraid of what ? “, then asks the president, Jean-Louis Périès. Amri replies: “But of everything! In my head at that moment, I have to go home and get away from him. »
“I didn’t have the courage”
The trio then takes the road in the opposite direction, towards Brussels. On the way, the vehicle is checked three times by the gendarmes, but the identity of Abdeslam has not yet been released. They walk away free, every time. “I would have preferred to be arrested”, then launches Attou to the court, visibly circumspect. Why didn’t he alert the police when he had the chance? “I didn’t have the courage, I was afraid of dying, I wasn’t prepared for that, I was 21”, justifies the young dealer. After a night spent on the road, Abdeslam demands to be dropped off at Laeken. Amri complies, leaves his car with Attou and goes home without asking for his rest.
His sidekick, he stays with the survivor of the commandos, accompanies him to buy new clothes and pays him the hairdresser. An attitude questioned by the prosecution and the civil parties. “He didn’t threaten me but the climate was threatening. I didn’t want to offend him, upset him. What he asked of me, I did. I would never have taken the initiative to leave on my own,” retorts Attou.
Installed just a few meters from Abdeslam in the box, Mohamed Amri expressed his resentment towards his co-defendant: “I blame him today. He stole more than 6 years of my life. I felt manipulated, he lied to me. On Wednesday, Salah Abdeslam will have the opportunity to answer him during his final interrogation in this trial. Unless he decides, once again, to remain silent.