Lone Surviving Bataclan Terror Attacker Refuses to Speak to Investigators as Trial Begins

The lone surviving defendant in the trial of 20 men implicated in the 2015 Islamic State attack on Paris has refused to speak to investigators, holding back answers to questions about the attacks and who planned them.

The trial, which is being held in a custom-built courthouse complex within a 13th-century courthouse, began Wednesday in France. The attacks were the deadliest for the country since World War II and one of the worst instances of terror in the West, killing at least 130 people.

Salah Abdeslam, the only surviving member of the group who struck fear throughout Paris that night, said he was "a fighter for Islamic State" when asked for his profession after intoning a prayer. His brother was among those who detonated suicide bombs in the city.

Abdeslam fled the night of the attacks after abandoning his car and a malfunctioning suicide vest, and he is the only defendant charged with murder. The other defendants, who are being tried posthumously, are charged with lesser counts of terrorism.

For more reporting from the Associated Press, see below.

Nine gunmen and suicide bombers struck within minutes of each other at several locations around Paris on November 13, 2015.

The worst carnage was at the Bataclan concert hall, where three men with assault rifles gunned down scores of people and grabbed a handful of hostages. Other attackers targeted the national soccer stadium, where the president was attending a game, and as well as cafes filled with people on a mild autumn night.

The presiding judge, Jean-Louis Peries, acknowledged the extraordinary nature of the attacks, which changed security in Europe and France's political landscape, and the trial to come. France only emerged from the state of emergency declared in the wake of the attacks in 2017, after incorporating many of the harshest measures into law.

"The events that we are about to decide are inscribed in their historic intensity as among the international and national events of this century," he said.

Dominique Kielemoes, whose son bled to death at one of the cafes, said the month dedicated to victims' testimonies at the trial will be crucial to both their own healing and that of the nation.

"The assassins, these terrorists, thought they were firing into the crowd, into a mass of people. But it wasn't a mass — these were individuals who had a life, who loved, had hopes and expectations, and that we need to talk about at the trial. It's important," she said.

Of the 20 men charged, six will be tried in absentia. Abdeslam will be questioned multiple times — but it remains to be seen if he will break his silence.

The same IS network went on to strike Brussels months after the Paris attacks, killing another 32 people.

Authorities have to extraordinary lengths to ensure security at the trial, building an entirely new courtroom within the storied 13th-century Palais de Justice in Paris, where Marie Antoinette and Emile Zola faced trial, among others.

Survivors of the attacks as well as those who mourn their dead on Wednesday packed the complex's rooms, which were designed to hold 1,800 plaintiffs and over 300 lawyers.

For the first time, victims can also have a secure audio link to listen from home if they want with a 30-minute delay.

The trial is scheduled to last nine months. The month of September will be dedicated to laying out the police and forensic evidence. October will be given over to victims' testimony. From November to December, officials including then-French President François Hollande — who was at the Stade de France on the night of the assaults — will testify, as will relatives of the attackers.

France changed after that night: Authorities immediately declared a state of emergency and now has armed officers constantly patrolling public spaces. And it transformed forever the lives of all those who suffered losses or bore witness to the violence that night.

"Our ability to be carefree is gone," Kielemoes said. "The desire to go out, travel — all of that's gone. Even if we still do a number of things, our appetite for life has disappeared."

For Jean-Luc Wertenschlag, who lives above the cafe where her son died and who rushed downstairs soon after the first gunshots to try and save lives, it has even changed the way he moves around the city where he was born and raised. He never leaves home without the first aid gear he lacked that night, when he ripped off his shirt to stanch the bleeding of a victim.

"What we did that evening with other people, to provide assistance to the people wounded during the attack, was a way to stand against what these monsters had tried to do to us," he said.

Among those scheduled to testify is Hollande, who in addition to being present at one of the scenes of attack gave the final order to police special forces to storm the Bataclan.

Hollande said Wednesday he would speak "not for the sake of French politics, but for the victims of the attacks." He said he keenly felt the weight of responsibility that night and for the days and weeks later in the aftermath of the attack.

"When the cameras are turned off, you go back to the solitude of the Elysée (presidential palace)," Hollande told told France-Info. "You ask what can I do? ... Is what just happened going to change society?"

None of the proceedings will be televised or rebroadcast to the public, but they will be recorded for archival purposes. Video recording has only been allowed for a handful of cases in France considered to be of historical value, including last year's trial for the 2015 attacks against the Charlie Hebdo newspaper in Paris and a kosher supermarket.