The defense of the only survivor of the commandos fought for four hours, Friday, to convince the court not to pronounce the incompressible perpetuity required by the prosecution.
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“This trial should not be the continuation of the war against terrorism by other means. The accusation asks you to definitively neutralize an enemy by condemning it to a sentence of social death. You are asked, basically , to sanction Salah Abdeslam up to the sufferings of the victims. It is called the law of the Talion, in a modern and revisited version. It seems that the punishment aims to make the one that chastises. So, when you think about Your decision, I ask you to make the effort to ask you this question: will you pronounce will make us better? “
It is on this mirror set to the court that M e Martin Vettes returned to the Defense benches, Friday, June 24, under the gaze of his client who, from the glass box Accused, did not take her eyes during the two hours of his pleading. The frail silhouette of her sister, M e
é> Olivia Ronen, in turn approaches the bar to carry the immense charge which weighs on these two young lawyers of 32 years: try to avoid In Salah Abdeslam, which is the same age as them, criminal imprisonment with incompressible life required by the prosecution.
The two weeks of pleadings of the trial of the attacks of November 13 ended, before a verdict scheduled for June 29, with a powerful charge in two voices against “real perpetuity”. This “slow death penalty”, in the words of M e Ronen, who makes any hope of liberation, was only pronounced four times, against the perpetrators of violent crimes on minors. Salah Abdeslam has never killed anyone directly: he is the defaulting member and the only survivor of commandos who left 130 dead on November 13, 2015.
“a legal fiction”
If Salah Abdeslam faces this extremely rare penalty, it is because it is considered to be “co -author” of the attempted murders against the police officers committed by the three terrorists of the Bataclan, the only offense justifying in this file the most sanction heavy of the penal code. Salah Abdeslam has never been at the Bataclan, any more than he pulled over police officers. He even claims to have given up killing that evening. A “burst of consciousness” which justifies, in the eyes of his lawyer, to give him hope to go out one day.
But for the prosecution, it does not matter that Salah Abdeslam was at the Bataclan or that he has given up to explode. According to his legal reading of the facts, all the targets of these attacks constitute a single crime scene, whose accused is fully responsible in “coaction” with the other attackers. A “legal fiction”, castigates M e Ronen, who summarizes this reasoning of a formula: “We know that you were not there, but we will condemn you as if you were there.”
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