Paris attacks suspect Abdeslam justifies 2015 killings

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The suspected sole surviving gunman from the 2015 attacks in Paris has come close to admitting his role in the carnage in a rare statement to investigators in which he justified the killings, reports said on Friday.

Salah Abdeslam, in custody in France over the November 2015 attacks that left 130 people dead, has refused to cooperate with French judges ever since his arrest five months after the atrocities.

But on Thursday he recorded a statement in which he parroted the propaganda of Islamist extremist groups such as ISIL, which claimed responsibility for the attacks on the Bataclan concert hall, a sports stadium and bars in Paris.

Feb. 8, 2018: Alleged accomplice of the November 2015 Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam, Sofiane Ayari (R), escorted by Belgian police officers as he arrives in a courtroom on the second day of the trial of Salah Abdeslam and Sofiane Ayari at the "Palais de Justice" courthouse in Brussels. /VCG Photo

"We don't attack you because you eat pork, you drink wine or you listen to music, but Muslims defend themselves against those people who attack us," said Abdeslam.

"Put your anger to one side and think about it a few minutes," Abdeslam said in comments addressed to the dead and injured. "You are suffering from the mistakes made by your leaders."

In April, a Belgian court sentenced Abdeslam, a French national of Moroccan origin, to 20 years in prison over a gun battle with police in his hometown of Brussels where he was arrested in March 2016.

December 18, 2017: Lawyers representing Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam, Sven Mary (L) and Romain Delcoigne (R) look on during the first day of the trial of Abdeslam for attempted murder in a terrorist context in Brussels. /VCG Photo

At the opening of his trial, Abdeslam defied his judges, claiming to place his "trust in Allah and that is all".

Abdeslam was a pot-smoking delinquent in the district of Molenbeek in Brussels until he became radicalized by ISIL propaganda around his 25th birthday in 2014, investigators believe.

His Belgian lawyer revealed in 2016 that he had never read the Qur'an and said he had "the intelligence of an empty ashtray."

He has been held in solitary confinement in France ahead of a trial which is expected in 2019.

Source(s): AFP