It will be the 148e hearing day. The last before the verdict. The ultimate opportunity for the accused to express themselves. Because despite its “non-standard” format, the trial of the November 13 attacks retains the rules of the French criminal trial: the eleven men in the box and the three other free ones will have the floor last, this Monday, before the court does not withdraw to deliberate.
From 9:30 a.m., President Jean-Louis Periès will give them the floor in turn. According to the logic that prevailed both for the requisitions and for the defense pleadings: it is the defendants suspected of being the least involved in the organization of the attacks who should speak first. In a kind of gradual scale, it is then those who are in the box who will be able to speak. Several of them, like the two backpackers of the jihad – of Pakistani origin for one and Algerian for the other – will have…