The Belgian investigators who testified at the trial of the attacks of November 13 all did so from Brussels, through interposed screens, hidden behind the anonymity of a registration number (“PFB 446 906 682”). Isabelle Panou is there, in flesh and blood, and obviously declines her identity. She was the investigating judge seized of the investigation into the attacks of November 13.
The first had accustomed us to sober costumes and stiff speech. Thursday, April 7, the second sat her round figure, her purple dress and her rosy cheeks at the helm, and after so many testimonies from soporific investigators on the form and sometimes destitute on the merits, review Isabelle Panou, her exuberance and her mastery of the file, was something exciting.
“Review”, because we had already seen the 53-year-old magistrate, who came to the bar to present the investigation of her life. It was September 14, 2021, this trial had five days. The defense lawyers had not been able to ask him any questions. She had promised to come back if they wanted. Here it is again. “A number of things have happened since then during this hearing”begins the president of the court, Jean-Louis Périès.
It happened in particular the “revelations” of Mohamed Abrini and Salah Abdeslam, the two main defendants. The first admitted to having been a time ” foreseen “ for the Paris attacks, and claimed that he had given up on it a few days before – and not the day before, as the prosecution claims. The second, meanwhile, explained that he never had the project to participate in the attacks, and only owed his status as a suicide bomber to the last minute defection of Abrini. “Magic of the Assize Court”quipped the judge, expressing her “astonishment” faced with these versions that she had never heard in five years of investigation, before recalling at length the incriminating evidence collected against one and the other, to the delight of the prosecution.
But since Isabelle Panou’s first stint at the helm, he has also “past a number of things” favorable to the defence: over the months, the hearing has brought to light major flaws in the investigation and the fragility of the evidence used against certain defendants. Many defense lawyers were therefore waiting for the judge with a knife between their teeth. Alas, they finally broke them on the shell of this extraordinary witness, whose leather tested by more than ten years of anti-terrorism resisted without too much difficulty two hours of repeated offensives.
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