Source: BuzzFeed News
BY Mitch Prothero & Annabelle Azadé
Daniel Zagury has evaluated dozens of suspects for French courts, including Salah Abdeslam, who was sentenced by a Belgian court to 20 years in prison Monday. What he’s learned is that the most talkative ones are the most dangerous.
When Salah Abdeslam, the only known surviving member of an ISIS cell that carried out deadly attacks in Paris and Brussels two years ago, refused to appear in a Brussels courtroom Monday for sentencing, his absence was no surprise to French expert witness Dr. Daniel Zagury.
A criminal psychiatrist who evaluates suspects’ competency on behalf of French courts, Zagury wasn’t sure what to expect when a French investigative magistrate assigned him to assess Abdeslam after his extradition from Belgium to France. Some terrorism suspects treated their time with Zagury with disdain. Others chattered gregariously. In some cases, the suspects are clearly mentally ill.
Abdeslam, however, simply refused to speak. Not a word over the course of the two-hour examination. That silence spoke volumes to Zagury, who took it as a sign that while there was no doubt Abdeslam was a terrorist, he was not a particularly well trained or indoctrinated one.
Categories: Belgium, Europe, France, ISIS, The Muslim Times