Bataclan victim sister: “We don’t hate you”

The sister of the only British citizen killed in the 2015 Paris bombings told suspects on trial for the atrocities that while her family “deplores what you have done, we don’t hate you.”

His brother Nick Alexander, 35, was killed when gunmen stormed the Bataclan Theater in Paris during a rock concert.

The attack was part of a coordinated assault by extremists from the Islamic State (IS) group that killed 130 people.

It was the worst attack on France since World War II.

Salah Abdeslam, the sole survivor of the IS cell, and 19 other defendants were tried in Paris for the attacks on a hectic Friday evening.

The deadliest attack of the night came at Bataclan, where Californian rock band Eagles of Death Metal were playing a concert in front of a sold-out crowd.

Mr. Alexander was working as the merchandising manager for the band when three gunmen entered the venue and started firing indiscriminately into the crowd.

He suffered gunshot wounds and died in the arms of his ex-girlfriend Helen Wilson.

In court Tuesday, Mr. Alexander’s sister Zoe addressed the defendants directly as she testified on the 33rd day of the largest trial in modern France history.

His brother, he told the court, avoided hatred. “You can’t neutralize the poison with any more poison,” he said.

Describing his brother as a music lover who upset convention, he told the court that Mr. Alexander lived “a life of true authenticity, something that those who committed the atrocities of that night, by order of others, will not know. never”.

“We are not at war with you, you are at war with yourself,” Ms. Alexander told the defendants.

On the first anniversary of the attack, Ms Alexander and her parents created the Nick Alexander Memorial Trust, which supplies music equipment to disadvantaged communities across the UK.

“The terrorists have tried to leave a legacy of darkness, but through the work we have done we have left a legacy of light,” Ms Alexander told AFP news agency after testifying.

He is one of the last relatives of a victim to testify since the trial opened at the courthouse last month.

He told the BBC on Wednesday that the atmosphere in court was “very emotional”.

“It’s very intense and it’s hard to relive those details, especially six years later when many healings have gone on,” he said. “Unpacking those emotions again was a difficult process for many of those survivors.”

The court also heard on Tuesday the father of Guillaume Valette, who committed suicide two years after the attacks.

Known by the French media as the 131st victim of the attacks, he came out alive and physically unharmed from the Bataclan massacre.

When the attackers struck, Mr. Valette had said he was lying on the ground, hidden among a mass of bodies, shot down by the bullets, his father Alain told the court.

He then went into hiding until the police intervened and managed to escape unharmed. However, he received “invisible bullets, which killed him, slowly but surely,” his father said. She said her son suffered from post-traumatic stress and took his own life two years later at the age of 31.

Around 350 survivors and relatives of the dead are expected to report during the trial.

IS admitted to carrying out coordinated attacks on the Bataclan concert hall, a major stadium, restaurants and bars on November 13, 2015.

Of the 20 suspects on trial, six were tried in absentia. They are accused of murder, complicity and conspiracy.

Most of the accused, including Abdeslam, could be sentenced to life imprisonment if convicted.