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Radio France Internationale
Radio France Internationale
National

A claim of innocence, silence and debate about reviving the horrors of the Bataclan

The accused Mohammed Amri, during one of his interrogations before the special court in Paris. © Radio France / Valentin Pasquier

Thursday's hearing before the special criminal court, where the men suspected of complicity in the November 2015 Paris attacks are being tried, was again marked by the refusal of several of the accused to answer questions.

Mohammed Amri spoke, once again insisting that he is innocent. And there was a legal debate on the use of photos and sounds recorded inside the Bataclan concert venue on the night of the attack.

The case of Mohammed Amri is a complicated one.

This is the man who drove to Paris from Brussels on the night of the attacks, to collect his friend, failed suicide bomber Salah Abdeslam, and bring him back to the Belgian capital. For that, Amri is accused of aiding a terrorist. He has already effectively served the maximum penalty of six years.

However, since he worked as a barman in the café run by terrace attacker Brahim Abdeslam, helped to rent a car used by the attackers, and had a long association with many of the key actors in this case, Amri is also suspected of having been an integral part of the terrorist group. That second charge could see Mohammed Amri sent to jail for 20 years.

The accused admits the first allegation, strenuously rejects the second.

On Thursday he calmly but firmly warned the French prosecutor, Nicolas Braconnay, that the authorities would have to answer for the six years Amri has already spent in prison, charged with "things I had no part of".

Silence on the trip to Schiphol

And then we were plunged into silence.

Three of the accused, Mohamed Bakkali, Sofien Ayari and Osama Krayem, successively refused to answer questions.

In the wake of Wednesday's partial silence by Salah Abdeslam, there was less energy in the ritual posing of unanswered questions by the various legal representatives.

Which means that, among other mysteries, the court obtained no further clarification on the purpose of the trip made by Ayari and Krayem to Amsterdam's Schiphol airport on the very day of the Paris attacks.

The attorney-general Camille Hennetier described as "a total absurdity" Krayem's explanation that he and Ayari had been sent to the airport on 13 November 2015 to see if there were self-service luggage lockers available.

The two men travelled on one-way bus tickets, and a computer with a list of attack sites, later found in Belgium, contained a file entitled "Schiphol Group". Whether a terrorist operation was planned for Amsterdam airport, to coincide with the Paris killings, remains an open question.

Debate on terrible sounds and pictures

The rest of Thursday's hearing was devoted to a dignified legal discussion on the pros and cons of allowing the court to publicly examine sounds recorded in the Bataclan during the attack, and photographs taken immediately afterwards.

The request in favour of publication came from one of the victim support groups.

Though there were several dissenting voices, and calls for great discretion, the majority of the lawyers present spoke in support of the request.

It took the court less than 30 minutes to reach a decision: the request is accepted, but not all the photographs submitted will be shown, nor will the entire sound recording be played. The audio will not be available on the webradio service which normally allows surviving victims and their families to follow the proceedings.

The material will be presented at the start of Friday's hearing.

The trial continues.

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