While the last council chamber was held this Wednesday in the context of the Brussels attacks, our reporters Benjamin Samyn and Emmanuel Tallarico met the lawyers of several suspects, including that of Mohamed Abrini.
It is the first time that he speaks on television. Maître Stanislas Eskenazi, Mohamed Abrini’s lawyer defends the man nicknamed “the man with the hat”. According to him, accepting this defense did not require a long reflection. “We accept easily because when it comes, we are facing someone who is cornered, who has everyone against him, describes master Eskenazi. So, it is an honor that you are asked to defend someone like that. But we must immediately say that sometimes we make the mistake of thinking that because someone is doing you the honor of asking you to defend him, then you consider the facts he has committed as honorable. The one and the other do not mix. The acts committed are terribly serious and it is with a lot of responsibility and humility that I have chosen to defend this case.“.
Maître Jonathan De Taye, another lawyer who chose to defend one of the suspects of the attacks (Ali El Haddad Asufi, editor’s note), joins him in this regard. “We quickly agree to meet the client, he describes. There is a period of reflection, but I immediately chose to deal with this file because there were a lot of things that were wrong and that will be discussed before the Assize Court “.
This first contact between the suspect and his lawyer is essential, according to Mr. Stuyck. The meeting will set the tone for collaboration. “It will allow me to work efficiently, in confidence and on a reciprocal basis, explains master Gisèle Stuyck, who defends the interests of Osama Krayem, the Swede who refused at the last moment to blow himself up in the metro. The facts are not taken into account in the assessment of this choice“.
Master Eskenazi hopes for a “great moment of justice”
The involvement of lawyers Stuyck and Eskenazi will reach its peak at the time of the trial of the attacks in Brussels and that of Paris. A moment that will be very emotional. “As Brussels residents, we have all been touched by these events, he recalls. It is not because I am a lawyer for one of the defendants that I was not affected by the events. I hope it will be a great moment of justice where justice can truly break out and where we can understand what happened and what happened in the minds of these people.
These lawyers will have to reorganize all their professional activity in view of this trial. “From 2021 to 2022, I will be taken by this trial, admits Master Stuyck. You should know that terrorism cases concern less than two percent of my clientele. So the difficulty will be to manage the other files at the same time “.
For these lawyers, to honor democracy is to allow each human being to defend himself, even if the committed facts distance them from humanity.
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