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The trial of the attacks of November 13, 2015, in Paris, had a setback Thursday. It will resume on Tuesday, the time for a new expert to say whether Salah Abdeslam, affected by the Covid, can appear.
In France, the trial of the attacks of 13 nNovember, which had been suspended on Tuesday due to the state of health of Salah Abdeslam, was once more postponed to the 11 January, pending a medical second opinion from the main accused, still positive for Covid-19.
The Cour special meeting in Paris has decided, Thursday, to grant a request for a medical second opinion requested by the lawyers of Salah Abdeslam, who had been declared “fit” to appear by a first doctor, a request in which defense lawyers and civil parties joined.
After three hours of suspension, the president ordered this new expertise to determine if Salah Abdeslam was “fit” to appear and indicate “any sanitary measures” necessary. He also asked “any useful clarification on the contagiousness of an unvaccinated inmate still positive following the period of isolation of ten days”. The report is due on Monday, and the hearing will resume Tuesday at 12 h 30, he finally announced.
Tested positive following Christmas
The 32-year-old Frenchman, the only surviving member of the jihadist commandos who killed 130 people in Paris and Saint-Denis on November 13, 2015, was present in the box for the first time since November 25. Salah Abdeslam had tested positive for Covid-19 on December 27, during the fifteen-day suspension of the hearing. The trial resumed briefly on Tuesday, before being immediately suspended, the main accused still being placed in solitary confinement following his positive test.
Two medical expertises have confirmed, in recent days, that he was now able to attend the hearings. Thisthe “Subject to a negative test”, however specified the first expertise, dated Monday. The second, dated Wednesday, indicated that Salah Abdeslam was positive for Covid “to a very low level” and that his state of health allowed him to “appear at the hearing”.
With the agreement of the lawyers of the civil parties
“AT Forty-Eight hours apart, the expert says everything and its opposite. It discredits him from a medical and scientific point of view ”, one of the lawyers of Salah Abdeslam was carried away at the hearing, asking for a new postponement of the hearing., time to carry out a second opinion.
Many lawyers, on the benches of the defense and the civil parties, therefore joined this request, demanding that the negative PCR test be “a compass”, in particular to avoid contaminations “in cascade” in the box where the defendants are seated within a meter of each other.
(AFP)