What choice will Salah Abdeslam make this Wednesday? Silence or secrets? The main defendant at the November 13 trial will be questioned one last time, about the hours following the attacks which he said he had “given up” and about his four-month run.
During his previous interrogation on March 30, the only surviving member of the jihadist commandos that killed 130 people in Paris and Saint-Denis had surprised and disappointed a packed house, deciding, for the first time in seven months to hearing, to exercise his right to remain silent. The special assize court of Paris was then to question him on this night of terror, if he had indeed “backtracked” by not activating his explosive belt as he had hinted six weeks earlier. But she waited in vain for the fuller explanations promised then. Just Salah Abdeslam agreed to reaffirm that he had “given up” his explosive vest.
Was the 18th century a target?
His last interrogation must focus on his schedule on the evening of November 13, 2015, when Paris sinks into dread and amazement. At 9:59 p.m., Salah Abdeslam abandoned in a square in the 18th arrondissement of Paris the car with which he conveyed the three suicide bombers from the Stade de France, still equipped with his explosive vest.
The explosions have already sounded in front of the sports enclosure, three men, including his older brother, Brahim, machine-gunned the terraces east of Paris and the Bataclan massacre began twelve minutes ago. Was Salah Abdeslam considering “something else”? The Islamic State’s statement of demands mentions an attack in the 18th arrondissement, and he is the only member of the commandos to have gone there.
The court will also try to get answers about his flight to Belgium. On the evening of the attacks, he had called several of his “buddies” in Brussels, including Mohammed Amri then Hamza Attou, today his co-defendants, to come and pick him up and bring him back to Belgium. Questioned on Tuesday, the two men regretted the “error” of a lifetime, repeating that they had “at no time” suspected that their “friend” from Molenbeek was involved in the attacks. It remains to be seen whether this Wednesday Salah Abdeslam will once again seek to clear them as he did on the second day of the trial, September 9.