Lawyers say suspect’s refusal to speak about charges against him means every prison visit is a ‘social’ one

Lawyers say they will no longer defend the main Paris terrorist attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam while he refuses to speak.

Franck Berton said he could do nothing while his client remained silent and that he was not engaged to make “social visits” to the jail.

Abdeslam is suspected of being the only surviving member of the terrorist commandos who carried out a series of shootings and bombings in Paris last November killing 130 people.

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French lawyer Berton and his Belgian colleague Sven Mary took on his defence after Abdeslam, 27, was arrested in Belgium in March and transferred to a prison in France, since when he has refused to answer questions.

The suspect has been put under investigation for murder and links to a terrorist organisation.

“We have both decided to give up the defence. We know and we are convinced – he has told us – that he will not talk and he will exercise his right to silence. What do you want us to do? I said from the first day that if my client remained silent, we would stop his defence,” Berton told BFMTV.

Berton criticised what he said was a “political decision” to put Abdeslam under round-the-clock surveillance in his prison cell at Fleury-Merogis, outside Paris. The suspect has complained that he is watched 24 hours a day by video.

“I feel it’s an immense waste [of opportunity]. I’ve seen Salah Abdeslam decline from month to month. When someone is scrutinising your every act and gesture even at night, you become crazy. This is a political decision, not a legal one,” Berton said.

He added: “We were convinced he had things to say and that he would say them. But he’s no longer talking and that’s a shame.

“We’re not going to sit next to him and watch him keeping quiet. He doesn’t want to talk, that’s his right, but in those conditions it’s difficult, impossible even, for us to do our job.

Mary, who after Abdeslam’s arrest said he was cooperating with police, added: “We have made Salah Abdeslam silent, but the real victims in all this are the victims of the Paris attacks, because they have the right to know the truth and the right to try to understand the incomprehensible.”

Abdeslam is not required to have legal representation during the investigation, but must have lawyers for his eventual trial.



