Paris terror attacks in 2015: Security ramped up outside Palais de Justice as trial begins

Dozens of police and other security officials gathered around Paris’ Palais de Justice courthouse in the wee hours of Wednesday as France opened one of the biggest cases in modern legal history. The trial relates to the November 2015 terror attack which saw nine gunmen and suicide bombers strike within minutes of each other at the National Soccer Stadium, Bataclan concert and Paris restaurants and cafes. A total of 20 men, all linked to the Islamist State (ISIS), have been accused but six out of them would be tried in absentia. 

Abdeslam, who abandoned his rental car in northern Paris and discarded a malfunctioning suicide vest before fleeing home to Brussels, has refused to speak with investigators, according to Associated Press. However, he is deemed to hold answers to many of the remaining questions about the attack and planners of the gruesome attacks. While the trial will be recorded, it would not be televised or broadcasted to the public. But, in the first, the administration would provide an active video link of the hearing to the victims and their families. 

“The assassins, these terrorists, though they were firing into the crowd, into a mass of people. But it wasn’t a mass — these were individuals who had a life, who loved, had hopes and expectations, and that we need to talk about at the trial. It’s important,” Dominique Kielemoes whose son died at one of the cafes on 13 November, 2015, said.

Trial expected to last nine months 

The case is expected to last for at least 9 months concluding next year in May and will involve as many as 330 attorneys and testimony by ex-president Francois Hollande. The court will deliver a verdict to impart justice to the 300 victims who lost their lives in the deadly bombing. Casefile consists of a hefty 542 volumes and measures 53 meters. Salah Abdeslam, the Belgium-born French Moroccan terrorist who last appeared at court in his hometown of Brussels, was detained by the law enforcement authorities on 18 March, 2016, in the same neighbourhood. All the Islamic State terrorists had grown up in Brussels. Europe’s most wanted fugitive, Abdelslam, had managed to escape the scene of the carnage amid the police gunfiring, while others in the 10-man Islamic State cell had succumbed to retaliatory fire. 

(Image: AP) 

(With inputs from AP)