(Radio France) Wednesday’s testimony from Mohamed Abrini, who is charged with complicity in the Paris attacks, focused on the suspect’s 2015 journey from Belgium to the Islamic State heartland in Syria, and his return via London, Birmingham, Manchester and Paris.
According to Mohamed Abrini, it’s all very simple.
He went to Syria to visit his younger brother’s grave, the teenager having died some months earlier fighting for Islamic State.
In Raqqa, Abrini’s childhood friend, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, then a high-ranking emir in the terrorist organisation, asked him to return to Belgium via Birmingham, where Abrini was to collect a small sum of money. He did what he was asked. And a little tourism on the side.
All the rest, Abrini says, is paranoia.
