“I go into the cafe, order a drink, look at the people around me and say to myself, ‘No, I’m not going to do it.'”
Abdeslam had already stated during the trial that he did not want to use his explosive belt, and that he had dumped it in a garbage can. He didn’t say then that he had already entered a cafe.
Earlier in the day, another suspect, Mohamed Abrini, had stated that he suspected his friend Abdeslam was afraid to commit the attack. According to Abrini, Abdeslam would later have stated to the other terrorists in their hiding place that ‘he tried, but the vest did not work’. They then called him to account. “Why didn’t you take a lighter or cigarette butt to blow yourself up?” However, Abrini did not believe in the story: ‘He didn’t dare, that’s all.’
On the run
On November 13, 2015, a total of 130 people were massacred on terraces, at a stadium and in the Le Bataclan concert hall in Paris. Only Abdeslam buckled his suicide belt, fled and was arrested four months later in Molenbeek, Brussels.
Wednesday is one of the rare occasions when Abdeslam has spoken: he consistently refused to cooperate with the investigation, and held up another trial in Belgium in 2018 (during which he was tried for involvement in a shooting of a Belgian police investigation team). jaws tight together. During the trial in Paris, he mostly invoked his right to remain silent, and to everyone’s surprise, Abdeslam seized the last chance to speak on Wednesday to provide answers.
henchmen
In total, 20 people have been charged, and Salah Abdeslam is the most important of them. The other suspects are accomplices. For example, they have arranged transport, supplied passports or provided housing. Mohamed Abrini is said to have helped with the preparations and accompanied the terrorists to Paris, before quickly returning to Belgium. He is known as ‘the man in the hat’ who fled four months later in the attacks on the Belgian airport Zaventem.
At the end of his statement, Abrini turned to the relatives of the victims. ‘November 13 should not have happened. We don’t kill women and children, war happens between soldiers. I apologise.’
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