The November 13 trial could resume Thursday, January 6 if Salah Abdeslam’s PCR test turns out to be negative, the president of the Paris special assize court, Jean-Louis Périès, announced Tuesday at the opening of the hearing. “I have just been told that the laboratory has still not transmitted to Fleury (where Salah Abdeslam is detained) the results of the PCR test of Salah Abdeslam”, indicated Jean-Louis Périès at the opening of the hearing before to add: “But normally we resume on Thursday”.
His phone exceptionally connected, the president waited in vain for the latest results of the tests carried out Monday on Salah Abdeslam to be communicated to him. The hearing began more than two hours late while awaiting these results. A telephone ringing rang out in the room. The president picks up and says “yes, yes”. He hangs up and explains: “According to the live information, the isolation [de Salah Abdeslam] is extended to January 5. Does that mean that the test is positive or negative, I don’t know ”.
“I hope that this trial will end in 2022!” “
Annoyed, he adds: “We were talking about an extraordinary trial but I did not know that it was an extraordinary trial due to the lack of organization of certain services”. “I hope that this trial will end in 2022!” He says. An expert appointed by the court examined Salah Abdeslam, before the result of his test, and considered that he was fit to attend the hearing on Thursday if his PCR test turns out to be negative, also indicated Jean-Louis Périès. But Salah Abdeslam’s lawyer, Me Olivia Ronen, disputes the expert’s conclusions. “My client to date is not fit to appear and that may be the case tomorrow or the day after tomorrow,” she said.
The only survivor of the jihadist commandos which left 130 dead and hundreds injured in Paris and Saint-Denis in November 2015, Salah Abdeslam, who has not appeared at the hearing since November 25, has tested positive for Covid -19 December 27.
The accused is being held in Fleury-Mérogis (Essonne) prison, south of Paris, where several sources of contamination have been detected recently. In solitary confinement, however, the prisoner is not in a bubble. He can receive his lawyers and works with supervisors on a daily basis. The special assize court has been trying since September 8 and until the end of May twenty defendants, including fourteen present at the hearing, suspected of being involved to varying degrees in the preparation of the deadliest jihadist attacks ever perpetrated in France. .