Widowed father who won praise for saying the Bataclan terrorists who murdered his wife would ‘not get his hatred’ in a viral note reveals he has attended the trial of the attackers every day
- Journalist Antoine Leiris’ wife Hélène Muyal died during 2015 Paris attacks
- He made headlines with viral post where said refused to give terrorists his ‘hate’
- Now, father-of-one revealed he’s attended each day of the attacks’ trial
- He said he still refuses to hate the perpetrators of the attacks six years on
Six years after his wife was murdered during the Bataclan attacks of 2015, a journalist and father-of-one has said he still refuses to hate the terrorists who took her life.
Antoine Leiris’ wife Hélène was enjoying the Eagles of Death Metals concert when she was killed, alongside 89 other victims, when terrorists burst into the concert hall and started to shoot at random on the evening of 13 November 2015.
Over 130 people died and 400 were injured when terrorists began shooting people in the popular neighbourhoods of Bastille and Republique in Paris that same evening.
Three days after the attacks and Hélène death, Antoine, now 40, shared a heartfelt post on Facebook, where he directly addressed the terror gang.
Mr Leiris said he would not give the fanatics the ‘gift’ of hatred despite the fact that they had ‘come looking for it’.
In September last year, the trial of over 20 men accused of planning and carrying out the attacks began in Paris. Antoine told the Times he has attended each day of the trial and will do so until it reaches its close.
The trial, which is expected to last nine months, is the biggest in France’s modern legal history and sees the 20 defendants facing sentences of up to life in prison.
French journalist Antoine Leiris shared a heartfelt message on social media after his wife Hélène Muyal was killed in the 2015 Bataclan terrorist attack of 2015. Six years on, he has said she still does not hate the men who took Hélène’s life
Hélène was enjoying the Eagles of Death Metals concert at the Bataclan when she was killed, alongside 89 other victims, when terrorists burst into the concert hall and started to shoot at random on the evening of 13 November 2015
‘I have no positive feelings for those people. I can’t see any excuse for them and I can’t see any mitigating circumstances,’ he said.
However, he said he still does not hate the terrorists who planned the attacks, in spite of seeing them everyday.
He added: ‘I have the impression that if you let that feeling live in you, it will take up an immense place.’
In his new book, Antoine reveals how he tried to be a perfect father to their young son Melvil in the early days following Hélène’s death, but eventually found he could not get things right all the time.
Antoine, pictured in 2016, wrote two books, one titled You Will Not Have My Hate and another, now available in English, titled Life, After
YOU STOLE THE LOVE OF MY LIFE: FULL TRANSCRIPT OF ANTOINE’S LETTER, WHICH WENT VIRAL DAYS AFTER HIS WIFE WAS KILLED IN PARIS
On Friday night you stole the life of an exceptional being, the love of my life, the mother of my son, but you won’t have my hatred.
I don’t know who you are and I don’t want to know – you are dead souls. If this God for which you kill indiscriminately made us in his own image, every bullet in the body of my wife will have been a wound in his heart.
So no, I don’t give you the gift of hating you. You are asking for it but responding to hatred with anger would be giving in to the same ignorance that made you what you are.
You want me to be afraid, to view my fellow countrymen with mistrust, to sacrifice my freedom for security.You have lost.
I saw her this morning. Finally, after many nights and days of waiting. She was just as beautiful as when she left on Friday night, just as beautiful as when I fell hopelessly in love over 12 years ago.
Of course I’m devastated with grief, I admit this small victory, but it will be short-lived. I know she will accompany us every day and that we will find ourselves in this paradise of free souls to which you’ll never have access.
We are two, my son and I, but we are stronger than all the armies of the world.
I don’t have any more time to devote to you, I have to join Melvil who is waking up from his nap. He is barely 17-months-old. He will eat his meals as usual, and then we are going to play as usual, and for his whole life this little boy will threaten you by being happy and free. Because no, you will not have his hatred either.
He said striving for perfection was neither attainable nor something you should wish for and that he risked trapping his son and himself in a life of sadness if he did not let some joyful chaos take over their home life.
The father-of-one also recounted the cathartic experience of watching a play based on his You Will Not Have My Hate book in Paris a few years ago.
Watching the actor who was playing him in the retelling of his story, Antoine said he felt the story unfolding on stage was no longer his reality.
He added that watching his story unfold in the play motivated him to move on with his life and focus on his day-to-day with Melvil.
In the book, he shared how he struggled with lone parenthood, revealing he was overcome with guilt after blowing up at his son after he refused to do what he was told.
He said it was particularly difficult to be a single parent without anyone to let him know it was okay to make mistakes.
The father-of-one also revealed how he began dating again after Hélène’s death, first turning to old girlfriends for comfort, before meeting a new woman who moved in with him and his son in 2019.
However, the relationship ended and the unnamed woman moved out in 2020.
While he is not dating someone presently, he explained he feels he has a right to a life after Hélène’s death, and that love could happen to him again when the time is right.
He said it would take time for him to meet the right person and that he doesn’t believe anyone ever really overcome their grief.
He added it is unlikely he will ever find exactly what he had with Hélène with someone else, but that he is open to something new.
The father-of-one said he long debated whether he should attend the Bataclan trials currently taking place in Paris.
He explained he decided to go to be able to answer any questions his son might about the attacks and his mother’s death have in the future.
But having attended four months of the trial, which is due to go on at least until May, Antoine said it helped him to understand what happened to Hélène and to understand how he had reacted to her death as well.
He added the trials had lifted the veil on the areas of the attacks he had not confronted yet.
The father of Melvil, who is now seven, said he could understand and would have no chance but to accept it if his son grew up to hate the terrorists who killed his mother.
The father-of-one said he knows he is allowed to move on with his life after his wife’s passing, but said he still struggles to overcome grief, and added completely overcoming it was impossible
However, while he said he was not on a mission to keep that from happening, Antoine said he would talk to his son and warn him that hate would lead him to think in circles.
How will the nine-month terror trial unfold?
The trial, which is the biggest in French history, is expected to last until May 2022 and has been broken down into several stages.
- September 2021: Police and forensic evidence will be given
- October 2021: Victims of the terror attacks will give their testimonies
- November – December 2021: Officials including former French President François Hollande will testify, as will relatives of the attackers
- January – March 2022: Each of the defendants will be questioned following the chronology of the events, from the preparations to the attacks and their aftermath. Main defendant Salah Abdeslam will be questioned multiple times
- April 2022: Experts will give psychological assessments
- May 2022: Closing arguments will be given by both sides before a final verdict is delivered at the end of the month
Antoine directly addressed the terror gang who gunned down his wife in a heartfelt Facebook post on 17 November 2015.
In the post, published openly on Facebook, he told of how the gunmen had ‘stolen’ the life of an ‘exceptional person’ and paid tribute to the ‘love of his life’.
Hélène was first reported missing through an online social media campaign to find those who had been inside the Bataclan at the Eagles of Death Metal gig, but the next day it was confirmed she had died.
Describing the gang, now known to consist of terrorists Omar Mostefai, 29, and Samy Amimour, 28, who both fled to Syria before returning to murder 89 concertgoers, Antoine wrote: ‘I don’t know who you are and I don’t want to know, you are dead souls.’
He added: ‘If this God for whom you are killing blindly made us out of his image, every bullet in my wife’s body would have been a wound to his heart.’
He added: ‘Of course I am overwhelmed with sadness, I will give you that, but it will be short lived.’
Antoine said he would carry on as normal for the sake of his son and said that united they were stronger than ‘all the armies in the world’.
As if ending a conversation, he finished the note with: ‘In fact, I don’t have any more time to give you, I have to join Melvil who is waking up from his nap.
‘He is barely 17 months old. He is going to have his afternoon snack like every other day and throughout his life he will insult you by being happy and free.
‘Because no, you will not have his hatred either.’
ISIS terrorist in court over 2015 Paris terror attack has his mic switched off while ranting about Syria as judge tells him: ‘You’ve had five years to comment’
An ISIS suicide bomber who survived the 2015 Paris terror attacks had his microphone switched off in court in September after multiple outbursts.
A judge told Salah Abdeslam, the sole survivor of a group of assailants who killed 130 people: ‘You’ve had five years to comment,’ after the self-proclaimed ‘Islamic State soldier’ disrupted proceedings with rants about Syria and claims some of the co-accused were innocent.
Abdeslam, 31, went on trial with 19 others in September last year over the November 13, 2015 suicide bombing and gun assaults on bars, restaurants, the Bataclan concert hall and the national stadium.
He claimed that three of the co-accused in what is the biggest trial in the history of modern France, were not aware of the plot.
‘They helped me but they knew nothing at all,’ he said regarding the attacks. ‘They are in prison but did nothing,’ the French-Moroccan dual national added before the presiding judge Jean-Louis Peries cut off his microphone and suspended the hearing.
It was the second outburst by Abdeslam, who on the first day of the landmark trial had launched into a diatribe about how he and his co-accused were being treated ‘like dogs’ in prison.
Meanwhile, he interrupted while the court was considering the admissibility of complaints brought by certain plaintiffs in the case.
Salah Abdeslam (depicted centre in black), an ISIS suicide bomber who survived the 2015 Paris terror attacks, had his microphone switched off in court after multiple outbursts
Abdeslam has admitted discarding a belt full of explosives rather than blowing himself up on November 13, 2015 [File photo]
‘The victims from Syria and Iraq – will they be able to speak?,’ Abseslam asked.
‘In principle, we should be presumed innocent before being judged… even if I do not endorse your justice,’ he said.
‘Let’s leave this discussion, Mr. Abdeslam’, replied the judge. ‘Sir – don’t be selfish. There are other people who want to hear me,’ Abdeslam retorted.
Abdeslam’s outbursts in court have sharply contrasted with his refusal over the last year to give any statements to investigators, always remaining silent.
Peries commented: ‘You have had five years to comment, you did not wish to make statements – as is your right. I understood now that you wanted to speak, and that’s fine – but now is not the time.’
The trial, which is expected to last nine months, is the biggest in France’s modern legal history and sees the 20 defendants facing sentences of up to life in prison, including Abdeslam. Six of the suspects are being tried in absentia.
Abdeslam’s apparent desire to steal the limelight risks becoming a major headache for the court as it seeks to use the next sessions to set up the marathon process and prepare for the testimony of survivors and relatives of the dead from September 28.
‘This is offensive to the victims, it is shocking the impact that these remarks have on the victims,’ said lawyer Samia Maktouf, who represents 40 plaintiffs in the trial.
On the first day, Abdeslam stated his Islamic faith when asked to identify himself and then replied that he was a ‘fighter for the Islamic State’ when asked for his profession.
‘Here it is very beautiful, there are flat screens, air conditioning but there [in prison] we are mistreated,’ he alleged.
Peries, the presiding judge, responded: ‘I have been to see you in prison, I have seen your cell.’
The exchange came after Farid Kharkhach, a co-defendant who is accused of providing fake papers to the ISIS cell, fainted.
His lawyers said this happened on a stifling hot day after Kharkhach ‘underwent two strip searches’ before entering court.
As the session drew to a close, Abdeslam screamed at the panel of judges that he would be ‘resurrected’ after death and testified that there was ‘no god except Allah’.
He ranted: ‘I’ve been treated like a dog for more than six years, but I say nothing because I know that after death I will be resurrected!’
Abdeslam was captured in Brussels after allegedly discarding his suicide vest and fleeing the French capital in the chaotic aftermath of the bloodshed on Friday, November 13, 2015.
The horror was unleashed late, when the first attackers detonated suicide belts outside the Stade de France stadium where then-President Francois Hollande was watching France play a football match against Germany that German Chancellor Angela Merkel was also attending.
A group of gunmen later opened fire from a car on half a dozen restaurants and Abdeslam’s brother Brahim blew himself up in a bar.
The massacre culminated at the Bataclan, where 90 people mostly in their 20s and 30s were massacred as they watched a rock concert.
Security is tight around the courthouse with nearly 1,000 police officers mobilised to provide protection around the court during the trial
Hundreds of police were stationed at the courthouse in Paris ahead of the opening of the trial
The specially designed courtroom and associated holding rooms are designed to hold 1,800 victims, 330 lawyers and 141 accredited journalists
Abdeslam has been in prison for six years following his arrest and has spent most of that time in isolation, while surveillance cameras watch him for 24 hours a day.
The trial will last until May 2022 with 145 days of scheduled hearings involving about 330 lawyers, 300 victims, and will include testimony in November from Hollande.
The trial is being held in a secure modern complex embedded within a historic 13th-century courthouse.
None of the proceedings will be televised or rebroadcast for the public, but it will be recorded for archival purposes. Cameras are restricted to filming outside the trial room, as video recording is illegal in French courts.
Court recordings have only been allowed for a handful of extremely high-profile cases considered to be of historical value, such as the trials of Nazi officials and collaborators including Klaus Barbie, Rwandan officials involved in the Tutsi genocide and figures linked to Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.
The most recent recorded court proceedings were in 2020, for the January 2015 attacks against the Charlie Hebdo newspaper in Paris and a kosher supermarket.
Nearly 1,000 police officers were mobilised to provide protection around the court during the trial amid heightened threat of terror attacks, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said on Wednesday.
Abdeslam, who was born in Belgium, is already three years into a 20- year-prison sentence for attempted murder.
This sentence relates to a shoot-out he had with Brussels police before his capture four months after the Paris attacks.
He remained largely silent throughout the 2018 trial in Belgium, where he declared that he put his ‘trust in Allah’ and that the court was biased.
He now faces multiple life sentences after admitting aborting a suicide bomb mission, though investigators later discovered his explosives belt was defective, and instead returning to his hometown, Brussels, following the attacks.
He was captured four months later in the city, hiding in a building close to his family home.
Another focus of the trial will be on how the squad of killers managed to enter France undetected, allegedly using the flow of migrants from Islamic State-controlled regions of Syria as cover.
Fourteen of the accused – who face charges ranging from providing logistical support to planning the attacks as well as weapons offences – are expected to be present in court.
They include a Swedish national, Osama Krayem, who Belgian investigators have identified as one of the killers of a Jordanian pilot burned alive in a cage by IS in early 2015 in Syria. He is also under investigation in Sweden for war crimes.
On November 13, 2015, gunmen and suicide bombers hit the Stade de France, Bataclan concert venue, bars and restaurants in Paris, killing 130 people [File photo]
The attacks in 2015 are the most devastating peacetime in French history [File photo]
Victims and survivors of the November 13 attacks have been in the courtroom on Wednesday and Thursday [File photo]
The alleged coordinator, Belgian national Abdelhamid Abaaoud, was killed by French police northeast of Paris five days after the attacks. Of the six tried in absentia, five are presumed dead, mainly in air strikes in Syria, with the final member believed to be in a Turkish prison.
Beyond preparing to attack the Stade de France, where France were playing Germany in a football friendly, Abdeslam also allegedly rented cars and hideouts for the ISIS cell.
Abdeslam’s childhood friend Abdelhamid Abaaoud, who was shot dead by police, was the suspected on-the-ground coordinator of the Paris slaughter.
Earlier defence lawyers all quit because of Abdeslam’s reluctance to communicate with them.
Sven Mary, his former counsel in Belgium, said: ‘He has the intelligence of an empty ashtray. He’s extraordinarily vacuous.’
Mr Mary added: ‘I asked him if he had read the Quran, and he replied that he had researched it on the Internet’.
Survivors and the families of victims described on Wednesday the experience of seeing Abdeslam in court.
Jean-Pierre Albertini, whose 39-year old son, Stephane, was killed in the Bataclan, told Reuters the reference to being an Islamic State soldier meant ‘we have in front of us … someone who is at war.’
Thierry Mallet, a Bataclan survivor, said: ‘I need more to be shocked … I’m not afraid.’
‘We are entering the unknown,’ said Arthur Denouveaux, another Bataclan survivor and president of Life for Paris, a victims’ association.
‘We’re eager for it to start but we’re wondering how it’s going to go over the next nine months,’ he said.
The defendants’ defence lawyers have warned the trial should not be swayed by emotion, despite the ‘suffering the events have caused’.
Defendant Yassine Atar’s lawyer told reporters as he entered court on Wednesday: ‘I agreed to defend a man… we see the security measures, the crowd, we understand the expectation around this trial.
‘But as defence lawyers’, he warned, ‘we need to stay the course and not get caught up in this environment… the main challenge is that emotion does not win the day and that we can keep the trial fair.’
Meanwhile Oliver Morice, a lawyer representing 35 families of victims, called for the suspects to face the toughest possible sentences, if convicted.
Attendees were asked to go through security gates and present passes at every corner of the building amid heightened fears of potential attacks.
Source: Read Full Article
