Before the Brussels Assize Court, Salah Abdeslam declared on Tuesday that he intended to "
go to Syria
" after the attacks in Paris.
The only surviving member of the jihadist commandos who killed 130 people on November 13, 2015 in Paris, he had already been sentenced in France to life imprisonment and is now appearing in Belgium with eight co-defendants.
On the subject of the attacks which killed 32 people on March 22, 2016 in Brussels, he was questioned by the president of the court, Laurence Massart, on a document in which he said he wanted to "finish the job", after the attacks in
Paris
.
"Only Words"
“
These are just words.
There is a margin between words and action
,” defended Abdeslam, who denies his involvement in these attacks organized by the same cell of the Islamic State group as those of November 13, 2015 in Paris.
Salah Abdeslam claimed to have written this text "
a month or a month and a half
" after the Paris attacks to "
give assurances
" to his leaders who had doubts when he explained to them that he had survived because his explosive belt had gone off. found to be "
defective
".
He did not name them, contenting himself with saying that they were “no
longer of this world
”.
While hidden in Brussels where he had been able to flee, he had expressed his desire to “
go to Syria
”.
“
I was asked if I was ready to do an operation on my own, if they gave me a Kalashnikov for example.
I was categorical, I said that I would not do it.
It was there that I was told: 'We will find a way for you to go to Syria, you have nothing to do here'”
, he said.
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“If I defend myself today, it is on principle”
Salah Abdeslam was sentenced in France to incompressible life imprisonment - the heaviest possible sentence - for his role in the attacks of November 13, 2015 which left 130 dead.
At the Paris trial, he explained that he "
gave up
" on triggering his explosive belt in a Parisian bar on the evening of the attacks, out of "
humanity
".
The investigation revealed that this belt, abandoned south of the capital, was defective.
Arrested in Brussels on March 18, 2016, four days before the double Islamist attack at Zaventem airport and in the metro, Abdeslam denies having knowledge of these plans for attacks.
“
I was sentenced to life, whether you sentence me or not it makes absolutely no difference to me.
If I am defending myself today, it is on principle
,” he told the court.
For the prosecution, the Frenchman was certainly imprisoned on March 22, but he could not ignore that other attacks were being prepared after having shared for months the daily life of members of the jihadist cell in the Belgian capital.