Paris suspect Abdeslam stays away for trial defense

A courtroom sketch made on February 5, 2018 shows prime suspect in the November 2015 Paris attacks Salah Abdeslam prior to the opening of his trial at the “Palais de Justice” courthouse in Brussels. AFP

Lawyers for Salah Abdeslam will launch their defense in their client’s absence at his trial in Belgium on Thursday after the last surviving Paris attacks suspect refused to return to court.

Abdeslam’s show of defiance comes after he berated judges for being anti-Muslim, said he would not answer questions and proclaimed he put his “trust in Allah” on the first day of the high-security trial on Monday.

The court said he had refused to return from the French jail where he is being held for the resumption of the trial, which is over a shootout with police in Brussels in March 2016 that led to his arrest.

Abdeslam’s Belgian lawyer, Sven Mary, has given no indication of the line he intends to take in defense of a client whom he has previously criticized for refusing to talk to investigators.

“We’re preparing it,” Mary’s associate lawyer Romain Delcoigne told AFP.

Abdeslam’s co-defendant Sofiane Ayari, a 24-year-old Tunisian, is now expected to appear alone in the dock at the Palais de Justice for the second and possibly final day of the trial.

The pair face terrorist-related charges of attempted murder and possession of banned weapons over the shootout with police which saw three police officers wounded and an Algerian fellow jihadist killed.

Prosecutors have asked for 20-year jail sentences for both Abdeslam and Ayari.

Belgian media quoted legal experts questioning how best to defend a client who had called the court’s judges illegitimate and alleged that all Muslims were mistreated by the justice system.

‘Researched Koran on internet’

Mary initially represented Abdeslam after his arrest in Brussels, which happened three days after the gunbattle, but then dropped the former bar owner because of his attitude.

However Mary then took Abdeslam back on as a client ahead of the trial and managed to delay the hearings from December last year to have more time to prepare.

Mary has previously said Abdeslam had shown few signs of religion, telling French daily Liberation: “I asked him if he had read the Koran, and he replied that he had researched it on the internet.”

Abdeslam was extradited to France after his arrest.

He was transferred under police escort from a prison in the Paris suburbs to the court in Brussels overnight on Monday, then taken back to another jail in northern France on Monday night.

The Brussels court will on Thursday first hear from victims of the shootout — six police officers who were fired at during the gunbattle — before giving the floor to defense lawyers.

Prosecutors have said that DNA links Abdeslam to the apartment in the Forest district of Brussels where the shooting took place, but not to the weapons themselves that were used.

Prosecutor Kathleen Grosjean told the trial on Monday that the police officers — a joint Belgian-French team — “faced a veritable war zone” and that it was a “miracle” that none was killed.

The Belgian trial is a prelude to a bigger one that Abdeslam will face in France at a later date over the November 13, 2015, Paris attacks claimed by the Islamic State group, in which 130 people were killed.

Abdeslam’s brother Brahim was one of the suicide bombers. Abdeslam’s DNA or fingerprints were allegedly found at five sites in Belgium used by the cell behind both the Paris and Brussels attacks.  /muf