At the November 13 trial, the court was awaiting answers on Friday from Mohammed Amri, the man who brought Salah Abdeslam back from Paris on the evening of the attacks, but it was above all his wife, whose hearing turned to interrogation. , which we heard.
Standing in the box, Mohammed Amri, white shirt and shaved head, does not have much to say to the special assize court.
“The truth...”
, he advances.
“You start all your sentences with 'the truth'.
Tell us the truth”
, gets angry the Advocate General.
Read also November 13 trial: accused of having participated in the logistics of the attacks, Mohamed Bakkali refuses to speak
“I don't remember anymore
,” replies the accused in a flat and hesitant tone, as with most questions that he seems to struggle to understand.
"Six years in pre-trial detention, it's complicated"
.
For this first interrogation, it is not a question of the famous Brussels-Paris round trip which earned him to be here but of his relationship to religion, to the brothers Brahim and Salah Abdeslam whom he knew well, having worked in particular for three month in 2015 at the "Les Béguines" café run by the eldest.
"You were behind the bar?"
, asks the president.
"If anyone wants a hot drink, or a cold drink, I come out from behind the bar."
Pushed, in vain, to give more information about his
“buddies”,
he ended up saying:
“If I am here, it is because of the Abdelslam brothers.
What more do you want me to tell you?”
His interrogation will have lasted less than the three hours of videoconference hearing of his wife Kim, 31, heard just before.
The contrast is striking between the defendant and this young woman with long light hair who will never allow herself to be disheartened by a shower of questions that sometimes make us forget - once again at this trial, regret Salah Abdeslam's lawyer, Olivia Ronen - that relatives of the accused are not judged.
"Nothing more ?"
Kim speaks for less than a minute that she bursts into tears when referring to the arrest of Mohammed Amri, the day after the attacks.
"Narcotics would not have surprised me, but terrorism..."
On a possible
"radicalization"
, she
"never had a doubt".
"I know his values
," she maintains.
"He hasn't changed, he hasn't suddenly started praying all day
," says this childcare worker who herself converted to Islam before they met.
She hated that her husband hung around at the “Béguines”, the
“execrable reputation”
of a cannabis sales outlet.
Her husband is
'very introverted'
, is
'not a leader at all'
, she said with a laugh.
“He really is a follower, even at home,”
she repeats to those who try to make him say that he could be
“impulsive”
.
It happened occasionally, especially with a neighbor who does not like
“mixed couples”
, she smiles without disassembling.
On the evening of November 13, once his Samu social round was over, Mohammed Amri called him.
“He said to me 'I went to find a friend'”.
"Nothing more ?"
, asks the court.
"Nothing more".
"He couldn't have said no?"
“It is not like that unfortunately”
,
“too nice”.
How could she not know her
"friends"
?
Didn't she try to find out more about the one her husband brought back from Paris?
And when he returned, why didn't they talk about the attacks that had just taken place?
“Your husband comes home at noon instead of 1 a.m., there was November 13, and you make him … eggs
,” says a civil party lawyer.
"Why didn't he tell you?"
, insists another.
"I am his everything
, "
"he didn't want to add his wife to this story
," says Kim.
"Does that bother you a bit ma'am?"
, the invective still a lawyer.
"To know that it's your husband who brings back the last man of this commando?"
The witness bursts into tears, one enrages on the benches of the defense.
"Of course, it's not normal
," she said, her voice shaking.
"My pain will never be as great as that of the victims, but that person (Salah Abdeslam), she also stole part of my life from me."
She pulls herself together.
“My husband never wanted that, I'm sure.
Unfortunately he went there, and he brought it back.