Salah Abdeslam, the sole surviving member of the jihadist team that carried out the November 2015 Paris attacks apologized on Friday to the victims at the end of his trial testimony, AFP reported.
The comments marked a dramatic end to three days of testimony by Abdeslam, who in the initial stages of the trial had maintained a rigid silence apart from occasional outbursts against the court.
The attackers, who were affiliated with the Islamic State (ISIS), killed 130 people in suicide bombings and shootings at the Stade de France stadium, the Bataclan concert hall and on street terraces of bars and restaurants on November 13, 2015.
"I wish to express my condolences and offer an apology to all the victims," Abdeslam told the court in a sometimes tearful statement on Friday, according to AFP.
"I know that hatred remains... I ask you today that you hate me with moderation," he said, adding, "I ask you to forgive me."
This past September, Abdeslam acknowledged his role in the Paris attacks for the first time and said the killings were retaliation for French air strikes on ISIS and the deaths of 130 innocent people in the attacks were “nothing personal”.
Abdeslam, the main trial suspect after the other jihadists were all killed during or in the wake of the attacks, has said he had planned to blow himself up in a crowded bar but stopped after seeing the people whom he was about to kill.
If convicted, he faces life in prison.
Abdeslam has also been convicted in a Belgian court for trying to kill police during a shootout in Brussels in 2016. The court sentenced Abdeslam and a co-accused to 20 years in prison in 2018.
He was also designated by the United States as a "global terrorist", meaning that sanctions freezing any assets in US jurisdiction and forbidding Americans to do business with him will be imposed.
(Israel National News' North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat and Passover in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)