Trial of November 13: “Salah Abdeslam likes to announce that he will speak and take pleasure in remaining silent”

At the hearing devoted to his actions on November 13, the last living member of the attack commando wanted to be silent, before releasing some “information” without convincing.

Initially, without daring to believe it too much, everyone hoped that he would speak. After five years of virtual silence during the investigation, Salah Abdeslam, the only member still alive of the murderous commandos of November 13, began to answer questions from the specially composed assize court, from the first days of his trial. Following seven months of hearings and two in-depth interrogations, with an accused who was sometimes insolent, often ambivalent, never convincing, everyone feared that he might be silent again. From the start of the most important hearing of the trial, where the accused was to answer for his actions on the night of the killings, he poses, a smirk on his lips: “Today, I want to use my right to silence.”

Stupor in the room, crossed by muffled exclamations. “It’s the worst he could do,” whispers a civil party. The patient warnings of the president, Jean-Louis Périès, do nothing about it: “It is your absolute right. But I allow myself to insist, it is important for everyone. “Faced with non-responses, we risk finding some that may not be favorable to you.” Abdeslam made his choice: “I kept silent for six years, it was not easy. It was the position I wanted …