PARIS – A marathon trial of suspects in the November 2015 Paris attack resumed on Thursday after a negative covid-19 test allowed the main suspect to attend.
Salah Abdeslam, the only survivor of the 10 assailants, had not appeared in court since November 25 and tested positive at the end of December.
He will appear for questioning next Thursday and Friday, an event long awaited by families of the 130 people killed on November 13, 2015.
Meanwhile, there was a tense conflict between the chairman and another defendant.
Osama Krayem, 29, a Swedish citizen, informed the court through his lawyer that he would be silent “until the end of the proceedings” and refused to even attend the trial, calling it “an illusion”.
Judge promises power
But when it was Krayem’s turn to be questioned on Thursday about his role in the series of jihadist attacks on bars, restaurants, the Bataclan Concert Hall and the National Stadium, Chief Justice Jean-Louis Peries said he would be forced to show up.
“I have no choice but to use force to make him appear in the stands,” he said.
It turned out to be unnecessary, as Krayem went to the bench without force and sat down next to Abdeslam.
“It’s good of you to come,” the judge commented.
ENVIRONMENT – In this court sketch made on November 2, 2021, Salah Abdeslam, left, main suspect in the attacks in Paris on November 13, 2015, participates in the trial that takes place in a temporary courtroom in the Palais de Justice in Paris.
Abdeslam, a dual French Moroccan citizen, was captured in Brussels after throwing his suicide vest and fleeing the French capital in the chaotic aftermath of the bloodshed.
Bataclan attack
The attack on Bataclan, in which 90 people, most in their 20s and 30s, were massacred when they saw a rock concert, represented the most traumatic of a series of separate attacks that the Islamic State has claimed for several years.
Abdeslam’s co – defendants respond to allegations ranging from providing logistical support to planning the attacks, as well as supplying weapons.
Krayem, who Belgian investigators identified as one of the killers of a Jordanian pilot who was burned alive by IS in early 2015 in Syria, is also under investigation in Sweden for war crimes.
After four months of negotiations, the trial has now entered a new phase where the 14 suspects present will be questioned. Six others are on trial in absentia, although five of them are believed to be dead, most of them in airstrikes in Syria.
The attacks in 2015 began when the first attackers detonated suicide belts outside the national arena where France played a football match against Germany.
A group of armed men later opened fire from a car at half a dozen restaurants, and Abdeslam’s brother Brahim blew himself up in a bar.
The trial, the largest in modern French history, is set to end in May.
Source: sn.dk