(Radio France) Sofien Ayari is not an easy man to defend. He fought in the ranks of Islamic State in Syria, he was involved in a shootout with Belgian police, he has generally refused to speak at this trial. On Wednesday, Ayari’s legal team did the best they could.
Sofien Ayari was not in Paris on the night of the November 2015 attacks. He was in a bus on his way back from Schiphol airport near Amsterdam, with Osama Krayem, another of the accused.
Despite his absence, Ayari risks spending 30 years in jail on charges of complicity in a terrorist plot.
The prosecution is convinced the two men, both battle-hardened Islamic State heroes, were in one of Europe’s busiest airports with a view to carrying out a terrorist attack in parallel to the Paris killings.
