Only surviving Paris attacker pleads for mercy at trial

Salah Abdeslam's testimony had been the most eagerly awaited cross-examination of the mammoth "Friday the 13th" trial which started last September. Abdeslam, a 32-year-old French citizen of Moroccan origin who grew up in the Brussels neighbourhood of Molenbeek, is the only survivor of the 10-man commando which in November 2015 killed 131 people at the Stade de France, at cafes in northeast Paris and inside the Bataclan music venue.

In more than seven hours of cross-examination on Wednesday afternoon and evening, Abdeslam portrayed himself as an ardent believer in the Islamic State group, and as a guilt-ridden deserter. His testimony will resume on Friday.

Abdeslam refused to talk to investigators for five years. When the trial of 14 defendants charged with aiding the slaughter opened, he was obstreperous and described himself as “a combatant of the Islamic State”. Until Wednesday, he had spoken only twice, to clear a co-defendant and in a religious tirade.

Abdeslam stood before the court with a neat haircut and perfectly ironed white shirt, his hands folded in front of his body. His tone was polite, even pleading, as he launched into a spontaneous declaration. “I did not kill anyone. I did not hurt anyone. Not even a scratch . . . In terrorist cases, the punishment is extremely severe, sometimes against people who didn’t kill, who hurt no one. I understand that justice wants to make examples of us. I would like to send a different message.”

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‘Afraid of God’

If he is severely punished, Abdeslam argued, it will incite other reluctant suicide-bombers to complete their mission. “In the future, if there’s a person in the metro, in a bus, with a suitcase with 50 kilos of explosives and at the last minute he wants to back out, he won’t, because he’ll know that you’ll track him down, lock him up, humiliate him, like me today.”

Asked how he became a jihadist, Abdeslam said, "I'm afraid of God, of hell, of God's punishment. When I saw my brothers getting massacred in Syria, it's true I wasn't a devout Muslim. I enjoyed life. I partied. That was all that mattered. It started to interest me because of the war in Syria. I wanted to help my brothers, though I wasn't a pious man. I felt attacked, threatened . . . I understood that I had to act for the cause."

A psychiatrists’ report dated December 30th, 2021, concluded that Abdeslam was “a rather ordinary human who chose totalitarian dehumanisation” and who recited Islamic State propaganda “like a trained parakeet”.

Judge Jean-Louis Périès asked Abdeslam if he approved of the beheadings, rapes and enslavement of women captives practised by Islamic State.

France maintained the death penalty until 1981, Abdeslam replied.

Islamic State recorded videos of beheadings for propaganda, Judge Périès noted. “Yes, but Islamic State obeys the Koran, Islamic tradition. That exists in the Koran . . . We are not going to change our religion to please others,” Abdeslam said.

When Abdeslam said he was “not a danger for society” a wave of incredulity swept through the courtroom.

Lives ‘destroyed’

Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the Islamic State operative who planned the Paris attacks and who died in a showdown with police five days later, had been filmed at the wheel of a pick-up truck in Syria, dragging the corpses of enemies behind. Abdeslam said he did not approve of such behaviour, then added. "He's my brother, my childhood friend. He's gone now. I hope that I will soon join him."

Abdeslam’s mother, sister and former fiancée had been scheduled to testify the same day, but instead sent letters which were read in court. Yasmina, his fiancée, said “he destroyed the lives of his parents, of hundreds of people and my life”.

Abdeslam’s mother apologised for not having the strength to endure the gaze of the court. “I apprehend seeing the fruit of my womb in the dock. This is the letter of a mother and though I know how serious are the crimes he is accused of, I nonetheless remain a mother who defends her children.”

Abdeslam’s brother, Brahim, died when he detonated his suicide vest on the night of the attacks. “No mother should have to live through that,” she wrote, imploring the court to have mercy on her other son, because he had not opened fire or blown himself up.

A lawyer for the civil plaintiffs asked Abdeslam why he did not blow himself up like the others. “I used to go to cafes like that, fashionable, I put on a shirt and cologne . . . There’s a moment of doubt to blow yourself up. A person asks himself ‘can I go through with it or not?’ But people who didn’t kill, you can’t convict them like those at the head of Islamic State. We’re in prison, in solitary confinement. Obviously, you say to yourself, “I should have set off [the suicide vest].”