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The main accused of the attacks of November 13, 2015 in Paris and Saint-Denis, the Belgian-born Frenchman Salah Abdeslam, declared this Wednesday, February 9, during a session in the Paris Court of Appeal that he backed down when he tried to detonate his explosive belt, despite declaring his allegiance to the Islamic State terrorist group hours earlier.
One of the rooms of the Paris Court of Appeal was once again full of journalists and witnesses who attended the interrogation of Salah Abdeslam, the main defendant and only survivor of the attacks in Paris and Saint-Denis that occurred on Wednesday, February 9 more than six years.
“I didn’t kill anyone or hurt anyone, not even a scratch, I didn’t,” Abdeslam said during his interrogation, since the trial reopened in early September last year. “Since the beginning of this affair, I have not stopped slandering myself,” estimated the only living member of the commandos that killed 130 people in Paris and Saint-Denis in 2015.
The investigation believes that Salah Abdeslam was going to carry out a suicide attack in the 18th arrondissement of Paris, but eventually gave up at the last minute or was prevented by a malfunction of his explosive belt.
The other members of the cells that carried out the attacks were killed by activating their bomb belts or by police bullets.
Est-ce de la bêtise ou de la provocation? Comment the terrorist #SalahAbdeslam peut-il être unconscious au point de lâcher, lors de son début d’audition: “je n’ai blessé personne, je n’ai tué personne!” pic.twitter.com/1mJmKuSggf
— Thierry de Cabarrus (@tcabarrus) February 9, 2022
The unknown as to whether or not Abdeslam gave up detonating the explosive
The explosives belt Salah Abdeslam was wearing on the day of the attacks did not detonate, as it was supposed to. Knowing if he had given up activating it or if the device did not work was one of the big questions during the trial.
The 32-year-old defendant clarified that he had not killed or injured anyone and criticized the process against him, as he currently faces life in prison for his involvement in the attacks.
“In the future, when there is someone in a subway, on a bus or somewhere else with a suitcase with 50 kilos of explosives and at the last moment he says (to himself) that he wants to go back, he will know that he has no right to think that because he is going to be persecuted and humiliated,” he said.
On the other hand, Abdeslam assured that he had never been to Syria and that he had not been aware of the return to Europe of Belgian Abdelhamid Abaaoud, considered the leader of the November 13 commandos, and who is supposed to be a close friend.
The defendant explained that he had never gone to Syria because of the ties he had in Belgium, “that is, my parents, my girlfriend, I was in a dead end”, although he also recalled that he had his “brothers in Syria”. The court will also ask about a mysterious trip to Greece by Abdeslam that is believed to provide clues to what happened.
Abdeslam: “I support the Islamic State, I love them”
From the beginning of the interrogation, the defendant also justified his belonging to the terrorist group that calls itself the Islamic State (IS). “I am for the Islamic State, I see how Bashar Al-Assad treats his people, kills children, innocent people. I, the Islamic State, support them, love them,” he declared.
Abdeslam presented IS as a “military” response to the international coalition’s bombings in Iraq and Syria. “The attacks were military operations aimed at stopping the coalition bombing,” adding that the attacks in Paris were in response to the aggression of France and the West and the imposition of “their ideology and values on the rest of the world.”
After finishing the interrogation in Paris, the defense of the victims of the attacks reacted to the accused’s statements.
“Salah Abdeslam is a dangerous and totally fanatical individual as he comes to reiterate his beliefs which are fanatical beliefs, of loyalty to the Islamic State,” said Mehana Mouhou, a lawyer for the civil party.
During the interrogation, which is scheduled to last two days, the defendant will only be questioned about the period prior to September 2015. The court will focus on the radicalism of the young man, who before the attacks was known to be a fan of casinos and the discos.
With AFP, EFE, Reuters and local media