Historical trials are, on some points, like others: they start late.
That of the attacks of November 13, 2015 was to begin at 12:30 p.m. in Paris on Wednesday, but the hearing did not open until 1:15 p.m., in a courthouse transformed into a bunker: never before had the City had so much been an island.
Inside, civil parties, lawyers and journalists took their places in the main room, built for the occasion, or in the many rooms equipped with retransmission screens.
The fourteen defendants present were installed at 12:15 p.m., we tried to identify them despite the masks, the distance and the reflections of the armored glass of the box.
Three appear free.
Six are absent.
Five, including the alleged sponsor of the killings, are probably dead in Syria, one is detained in Turkey.
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Finally, the bell.
The courtyard makes its entrance.
President Jean-Louis Périès begins, as usual, by checking the civil status of each accused.
Alphabetical order obliges, the first to stand up is Salah Abdeslam, the only member of the Islamist commandos still alive.
The President:
"What are your last name, first name, age and profession?"
Salah.
Abdeslam, dressed all in black - to the mask - seems to want to refuse to get up.
But he stands up briskly and launches:
"First of all, I want to testify that there is no god except Allah and that Mohammad is his messenger."
The president, who was probably expecting a digression like this:
“We'll see that later.
What are your surname, first name, age and profession? "
The accused:
"Abdeslam Salah, September 15, 1989."
The President:
"What is your father's first name and your mother's maiden name?"
The accused:
“Their name has nothing to do here.
(Quietly)
: I left my profession to become an Islamic State fighter. ”
We are not in an ecclesiastical tribunal but in a democratic tribunal.
Sit down, please.
Jean-Louis Périès, president of the trial, to Salah Abdeslam.
Salah Abdeslam, the
"fighter"
who did not die on November 13, 2015, unlike the identified terrorists from the Stade de France, the terraces and the Bataclan, is the only defendant to claim, from the outset, his membership of Daesh .
The thirteen others wisely state their identity, without trying to disturb the audience.
This formality accomplished, the president launches out in the nominative appeal of the 1800 civil parties, tedious formality which will not be completed until this Thursday.
At around 4:50 p.m., the hearing was suspended: one of the accused, Farid Kharkhach, suspected of having allowed fanatic assassins to obtain false papers, was uneasy.
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She resumes half an hour later. While the lawyers of Farid Kharkhach denounce the conditions of detention of their client, Salah Abdeslam leaps:
“Dangerous or not, we are men, human beings, we have rights
(rumors of disapproval on the benches of the civil parties).
Here
(in the courtroom)
it's very beautiful, there are flat screens, but I've been treated like a dog for over six years. I have never complained because I know that after death we will be resuscitated and that you will have to be accountable. ”
The president, very calm, tries to interrupt him.
But the accused does not hear it that way:
"I respect you, respect me too."
And to start again in his story of resurrection.
This time, the president cut short:
“We are not in an ecclesiastical tribunal but in a democratic tribunal.
Sit down, please."
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Earlier, he gave a strong preamble:
“This trial is historic and extraordinary.
But the very essence of a criminal trial is respect for the norm and the application of criminal procedure, especially with regard to the rights of the defense.
The court is distinguished, and it must be hammered out, from all the institutions with a historical, political or sociological vocation.
We have to stay this course. ”
A profession of humanist faith against that of a fanatic who has never wanted to explain his actions, incurs life imprisonment and considers this trial as a circus.