The last surviving suspect in the deadly Paris bombings in 2015 told the court that he had changed his mind about killing at the last minute.
“My goal was to go to a café in the 18th district of northern Paris,” Salah Abdeslam told a special Paris court hearing the case. “I go into the cafe, I order a drink, I look at the people around me – and I said to myself, ‘No, I’m not going to do that.’
For the plaintiffs in the case, including the survivors and relatives of the victims of the November 2015 attacks, which killed 130 people, these were testimonies that had been waiting for months.
Abdeslam, 32, said he had been told about plans for the Nov. 11 attack in Paris, two days before the attack. This happened at a meeting in Charleroi, Belgium, with Abdelhamid Aboud, who is accused of organizing the attacks.
Until then, Abdeslam said, he thought he would be sent to Syria. Instead, he was told he had been chosen to attack with an explosive belt.
“It was a shock to me, but in the end he convinced me,” he said. I finally accepted and said, “Okay, I’ll keep doing this.”
But at this meeting he was not given details about the purpose of the attack.
When he finally failed to cope with the attack, he told the court how he took his car and traveled around Paris at random until it was damaged. Then he went out and left, he said, saying his memories of that period were “confused.”
Pressed by court president Jean-Louis Paris, he said he only knew what he had to do. “My brother had a belt, Kalashnikov, I know he will open fire, I know it will explode, but I did not know the purpose.
The attackers killed 130 people in suicide bombings and shootings at the Stade de France, the Bataclan concert hall and the street terraces of bars and restaurants on November 13, 2015 in the worst atrocity in France in peacetime.
Abdeslam Brahim’s older brother opened fire on a cafe terrace before exploding.
Earlier in court, another defendant, Mohamed Abrini, said Abdeslam simply did not have the courage to go through the attack.
Abrini, who is accused of providing weapons and logistical support to the attackers, said he saw Abdeslam when he showed up at a safe house the day after the attacks. “He was exhausted, tired, he looked pale,” he said.
One of the organizers of his attacks shouted that he did not blow himself up. “I think he told them his belt didn’t work,” Abrini said.
Abdeslam told the court last month that he had in fact lied about the malfunction.
After surviving the attack, Abdeslam fled to the Molenbeek district of Brussels, where he grew up. He was captured in March 2016.
Together with Abdeslam, the defendants face charges ranging from providing logistical support to planning attacks and supplying weapons.
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