(AFP) During the nine-month trial stemming from France’s worst ever terror attacks in November 2015, the moment hundreds of victims were hoping for came late in proceedings.
“I’m going to explain myself because it’s the last time that I’ll have the opportunity to do so,” said Salah Abdeslam, the sole surviving Islamic State jihadist from the group that attacked the Bataclan concert hall and other targets in the French capital.
Spoken in the defendants’ glass box in April, the words sent tremors through the courtroom where victims and their families had been ever-present during the hearings.
Those caught up in the carnage of November 13, 2015, had expressed different hopes for the trial, the biggest in French history which comes to climax this Wednesday when verdicts are expected.
