A trial that began on Monday with a controversy raised by the accused Mohamed Abrini. The latter deplores the conditions of his transfer between Haren prison and Justitia, where the hearings are held. “You are humiliated, you are stripped bare, you have a blindfold on and satanic music is loud in your ears“, he denounced at the bar, threatening to remain silent throughout the trial if nothing changed.
“The revolt is booming” among the defendants at the trial of the Brussels attacks
A threat that Salah Abdeslam’s lawyers advise not to take lightly, because they are witnesses to the state in which these transfer conditions put the defendants. “Lrevolt becomes boiling. Abrini said it, his blood is ‘boiling’, and it must be the same also in the case of the other defendants who are the subject of the same searches. Revolt rumbles inside these human beings“, testified Michel Bouchat at the microphone of LN24, while his colleague detailed the conditions of transfer of Salah Abdeslam: “He’s stripped naked, asked to show his anal orifice and that sort of thing. That’s where they say it’s going too far”.
”The transfer conditions must be dignified. It is not because he is accused, even of serious facts, that he can be treated in an unworthy manner. Because the risk is that the defendants close completely and no longer participate in their trial”, continued Delphine Paci. “The circumstances in which he is searched constitute a humiliation which is appalling. It is felt very painfully, it is not cinema. We should put ourselves in his place […] Nothing justifies these searches, from the moment he leaves a high security area and is taken care of by police”, chained Me Bouchat.
But will this situation push Salah Abdeslam to remain silent during the trial? “He himself will estimate whether he should answer or not.”, reacted his two lawyers, not wanting to reveal anything about it. “We, we want him to express himself“, they only confided.