Ali El Haddad Asufi, one of the eleven accused appearing held, had symptoms of COVID-19, Friday. His test proved positive. “We can take over the debates on the 25th [January],” said the President of the Special Assize Court.
Le Monde with AFP
The debates at the trial of the attacks of 13 November 2015 will not resume before January 25 because of a new case of CVIV-19 among the accused, formally announced the President of the Special Assize Court, Jean- Louis Perès, at an Express audience, Tuesday, January 18th.
Ali El Haddad ASUFI, one of the eleven accused appearing held, had symptoms of COVID-19 at the Friday hearing and was subjected to a test whose result was positive. He is suspected of having been a logistician of the attacks because of his regular contacts with the members of the Jihadist cell and because he attended their Brussels Planes.
“he will not be able to come from the week (…), we can therefore take over the debates on the 25th, provided that his state of health allow them,” said the President of the Special Assize Court at A hearing of less than half an hour, without the accused.
Trials already disrupted by COVID-19
He had already warned the parties by email, but the procedure – “quite rigorous, perhaps we should think about adapting it to our time,” said the magistrate – requires that a hearing to be held for formally The trial.
“Subject to another sanitary problem”, as the contamination of other accused, sitting relatively close to each other in a closed box and a window without windows, the trial will resume Tuesday with the interrogation of Pakistani Muhammad USMAN. That of the main accused, Salah Abdeslam, is now scheduled for 9 and 10 February.
The health situation had already disrupted the resumption of the trial in early January: Salah Abdeslam had contracted the Cvid-19 in prison at the end of December and was still positive. A counter-expertise that concluded on January 10th that he was “healed” and “non-contagious”, the hearing had taken over the next day with the beginning of the appended interrogations.
Find here all our articles on the trial of the attacks of 13-November.