PARIS (AP) – The lone surviving member of the Islamic State attack team that terrorized Paris in 2015 asked for forgiveness on Friday and expressed condolences to the victims.
For years, Salah Abdeslam has kept silent about what happened on November 13, 2015 at the Bataclan theater, Paris cafes and the National Stadium, and about the 130 people who were killed. After his trial opened last year, he had a few outbursts of extremist bravado, but he refused to answer most questions for months.
Then this week his words started flowing, in lengthy statements that sometimes contradicted previous statements. His words sometimes sparked angry outbursts from the public.
Reactions have been mixed from survivors and victims’ families, who hope the lengthy process will help them find justice and clarity.
Abdeslam said the mastermind behind the attacks had persuaded him to join the suicide bombing team two days earlier. The next day, Abdeslam said his brother Brahim showed him the cafe in north Paris where Salah was supposed to detonate himself in a crowd.
“For me it was a shock. I didn’t know how to react. I showed that I wasn’t ready for that,” Abdeslam told the court. “In the end he convinced me.”
He recounted how he donned an explosive belt on the night of November 13, when his brother and other Islamic State extremists who had been fighting in Syria were swarming around Paris to carry out parallel attacks.
“I enter the cafe, I order a drink,” said Abdeslam. “I thought. I looked at people laughing and dancing. And then I knew that I couldn’t do it.”
“I told myself I’m not going to do it,” he said, citing a sense of “humanity.”
A police demolitions expert told the court that the demolition belt was defective, but Abdeslam testified that he deactivated it.
Last month he expressed “regret” that he did not carry out the attack.
But this week he began to show signs of remorse.
“There are no words for that,” he said.
Questioned by his lawyer on Friday about his mother and her loss in the death of her elder son, Abdeslam began to cry for the first time since the trial began in September, according to French media reports.
“I ask you today to detest me with moderation,” he told the victims. “I offer my condolences and ask for forgiveness for all victims.”
He has also repeatedly sought forgiveness from three co-defendants who were brought to trial for helping him escape.
Georges Salines, whose daughter Lola was killed in the Bataclan, was quoted by France-Info radio as saying: “Abdeslam is trying to resolve a mountain of contradictions in his head. He tries to solve them, but his way will be long.”
After leaving the cafe, Abdeslam described desperate attempts to reach friends to ask for help and took a taxi across Paris to the suburb of Montrouge, where he said he removed the detonator from his explosive vest and the Vest thrown in a trash can. He first hid near Paris and then fled with friends to Brussels, where he was arrested four months later.
If convicted of murder, he faces life imprisonment.
The more than 2,400 civil parties to the case will present their final arguments next month, and the verdict is expected on June 24. It is one of the largest trials in modern French history.
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Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this.