“He panicked and made a very bad decision“: the lawyer of Abid Aberkane, a cousin of Salah Abdeslam tried for having hosted in Brussels in March 2016 the only member still alive from the commandos of November 13, pleaded Monday May 9 for clemency for his client.
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Me Virginie Taelman began the sequence of defense pleadings at the trial, in the Belgian capital, of 14 alleged accomplices of the perpetrators of the Paris attacks of November 13, 2015 (130 dead). On March 15, 2016, while Salah Abdeslam – on the run for four months – had just narrowly escaped a police raid on a Brussels hideout, Abid Aberkane was contacted by a man named “Aminewho asks him to join him where he is in Molenbeek.
“He’s his cousin, he’s under pressure”
Under a false name, with “a private number“(not identifiable), told Me Taelman, Abdeslam deceives the vigilance of this cousin, who finds himself cornered, “under pressureto respond to his request to house him with an accomplice who is also on the run. Aberkane grants the request, opens the cellar of his mother’s home for them, where he provides them with food for three days, until the arrest of March 18, 2016. “He’s his cousin, he’s under pressure, has to decide in a split second and he’s going to make the wrong decision“, assured Me Taelman.
At this trial before the Brussels criminal court where “small handsAccused of having helped, transported or harbored members of the jihadist cell of November 13, Abid Aberkane, 40, is among the defendants most severely singled out by the prosecution. Ten days ago, a four-year prison sentence, with possible suspended probation, was requested against him for acts qualified as “extremely seriousby the Federal Prosecutor’s Office. In the investigation, the prosecution reported the discovery, in March 2016, in Aberkane’s mobile phone, of some 200 images “of a jihadist nature, to the glory of the Islamic State group(IE).
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According to Me Taelman, his client was certainly interested in IS propaganda, but did not support the acts of the cell of November 13, also at the origin of the attacks in Brussels (32 dead on March 22, 2016 ). “He recognized the accommodation (of Abdeslam), he did not minimize. He told you it was a decision of the heart, not rational… He broke down“, continued the lawyer. Abid Aberkane served fifteen months in pre-trial detention and a conviction could risk bringing down a suspended sentence pronounced in another case, she also argued. After the end of the pleadings, next week, the court will reserve its judgment. It should be pronounced no later than June 30.
SEE ALSO – November 13 trial: Salah Abdeslam faced with his contradictions before the Assize Court