PARIS — The trial over the November 2015
attacks in
Paris, France’s worst-ever terror assault, heard the beginning of
closing arguments Wednesday by the three leading prosecutors in the case.
اضافة اعلان
For three days, the
prosecutors will detail their version of the events on November 13, 2015, when
130 people died at the
Bataclan concert hall and elsewhere in shootings that
traumatized the country.
In accordance with
French court procedure, the prosecutors will then lay out their assessment of
the level of guilt of each accused and finally, on Friday, recommend
sentencing.
In the dock is
Salah Abdeslam, the only surviving member of the Islamist hit team that opened
fire in the packed concert hall and on cafe terraces in adjacent streets, as
well as at the Stade de France sports arena.
Also on trial are
19 others accused of various degrees of assistance to the killers.
Twelve, including
Abdeslam, risk life in prison, the maximum punishment under French law.
“What will we
remember from this trial? What images? What words?” asked prosecutor Camille
Hennetier as she delivered her closing remarks in what is France’s biggest
trial ever, which started in September 2021.
“Your verdict, of
course,” she said.
“And the names of
the dead that were read out in September. The testimony of the survivors. And
finally, without a doubt, the cruelty of the terrorists who fired again and
again and took pleasure in killing.”
The length of the
trial, its emotional charge and the number of plaintiffs — 2,500 — have made it
the most impactful legal proceeding in French history.
Six suspects are
being tried in absentia, including five leading
Daesh members presumed dead in
Syria.
‘Illogical’ claim
Abdeslam, a 32-year-old Frenchman who was arrested in
Belgium after five
months on the run, kept silent during the police investigation but started
talking during the trial, explaining how he gave up plans to blow himself up,
and apologized to victims.
But his tearful
appeal for forgiveness had little impact on the prosecutors, who do not believe
that Abdeslam really changed his mind about the attack. Instead, they say, his
explosive belt simply malfunctioned.
Prosecutors also
said the accused’s claim that he was recruited by a terrorist cell only a few
days before the attacks was “strange” and “illogical”.
They are expected
to ask for Abdeslam to be sentenced to life in prison without parole, a verdict
pronounced only very rarely in France and which all but rules out any later reduction
of his sentence.
Most prisoners on
life sentences in France are released after 20 to 25 years.
Closing arguments
by the defense lawyers start next week, and the verdicts are scheduled for June
29.
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