These attacks were also supposed to take place in the French capital. They were originally intended to take place during the 2016 European Football Championship in France, the accused Mohammed Abrini said in court in Paris on Wednesday. Instead, on March 22, 2016, the attacks on the airport and the metro in Brussels took place.
Defendants said they had changed their minds
“March 22 was not planned,” said Abrini, who appeared on camera images as a “man with a hat” during the attack on the airport. As Abrini testified, he accompanied the Paris terrorist squad from Brussels to Paris on November 12, 2015, but returned to the Belgian capital on the eve of the attacks — as he said, because he didn’t want to kill people after all. Nevertheless, he slipped into various hiding places of the terrorist squad in Brussels, in which, according to his statement, heavy weapons were stored everywhere. The sole survivor of the terrorist commando, Salah Abdeslam, who was also accused in Paris, also returned there. According to his own account, he did not detonate his explosive vest in court because he also changed his mind.
The accused asked relatives for an apology
According to Abrini, he told the other Islamists, “I tried, but the vest didn’t work.” The rest of them would have held Abdeslam accountable for this. “Why didn’t you use a lighter or a fag to blow yourself up?” At the end of his testimony, Abrini turned to the victims’ families. “November 13, that should never have happened, I apologize.”
In an interview in court on Wednesday, Abdeslam described for the first time in detail why he deliberately did not detonate his explosive vest, as he says it is. He first went to the café in the 18th arrondissement of Paris, where, according to the plans of the terrorist cell, he should have blown himself up. “I walked into the café, ordered a drink, I saw the people around me and I said to myself I’m not going to do it.”
In the series of attacks on November 13, 2015, extremists killed a total of 130 people. Three attackers committed a massacre in the Bataclan concert hall, others attacked bars and restaurants. At the Stade de France, three suicide bombers blew themselves up during an international football match between Germany and France. The terrorist militia Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for the acts that hit France to the core. A total of 20 suspected Islamists have been charged.
Source: Nachrichten
