The sole surviving member of the jihadist team that carried out the November 2015 attacks in Paris apologized to the victims at the end of his trial testimony on Friday.
“I wish to express my condolences and offer an apology to all the victims,” Salah Abdeslam told the court in a sometimes tearful statement.
“I know that the hate remains… I ask you today to hate me in moderation,” he said, adding, “I ask you to forgive me.”
The comments marked a dramatic end to three days of testimony by Abdeslam, who in the opening stages of the trial had maintained a rigid silence apart from occasional outbursts against the court.
Abdeslam, the prime suspect on trial after all the other jihadists were killed during or after the attacks, has said in his testimony that he had planned to blow himself up in a crowded bar but stopped after seeing the people around him. which he was about to attack. to kill.
One of his defense attorneys, Olivia Ronen, during her client’s cross-examination, asked him if he did not regret having carried out his plan to the end.
“I do not regret. I did not kill these people and I did not die,” she replied.
“I would like to say today that this story of November 13 was written with the blood of the victims. It is her story, and I was a part of it,” he added.
“They are linked to me and I am linked to them,” he said in a shaky voice, before issuing his apologies.
Addressing the injured and those who lost loved ones: “I know this (the apology) is not going to heal you.
“But if it can do you any good, if I was able to do any good for one of the victims, then for me it’s a victory.”
Attackers killed 130 people in suicide bombings and shootings at the Stade de France stadium, the Bataclan concert hall, and bar and restaurant terraces on November 13, 2015, in France’s worst peacetime atrocity.
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