Deep inside Paris’s historic law courts on the bank of the River Seine, builders were putting the finishing touches to an extraordinary architectural structure described as a cross between a high-security bunker and modern church, reports The Guardian.
Its sleek pale wood and white lighting were chosen by the French justice ministry to create “a sense of calm” in contrast to the horrific events which will soon be examined there. This temporary structure will from next week host the biggest criminal trial ever held in France, when 20 men are accused of planning, aiding and carrying out the November 2015 Paris terrorist attacks on a stadium, bars and restaurants and the Bataclan concert hall.
The trial, which will last nine months and feature witnesses including the former president François Hollande, is held as a crucial step in addressing the personal and national trauma of the coordinated attacks that killed 130 people and injured more than 490. But it is unclear whether the key accused will break their silence on the massacre described by Hollande as an “act of war”.
The attacks, claimed by Islamic State, began around 9pm on a Friday night, 13 November 2015, when a suicide bomber blew himself up after failing to get into the Stade de France. Hollande was among 80,000 people at the stadium watching a France-Germany football match. This bombing was followed by drive-by shootings and suicide bombings at cafes and restaurants in Paris, and an attack at the Bataclan during a rock concert by Eagles of Death Metal where 90 people were killed.
The key figure on trial is Salah Abdeslam, believed to be the last survivor from the cell of 10 men who struck the city, most killing themselves or killed by police.
Abdeslam, 31, a Brussels-born French citizen, is alleged to have been central to the vast logistics operation that saw the jihadists return to Europe from Syria, via the migrant route. He is believed to have escorted the three bombers who blew themselves up at the Stade de France. He is suspected of perhaps planning to carry out his own suicide attack in Paris’s 18th arrondissement, and backing out. His brother blew himself up and died at a Paris bar during the attacks.
Abdeslam hid south of Paris after the attacks and called contacts in Brussels to collect him by car at 5.30am. After a manhunt, he was arrested four months later at a Brussels flat. Days after his arrest, suicide bombers alleged to be part of the same cell struck at Brussels airport and the metro, killing 32 and injuring 270.