“Six years later, I still blame him.” At the November 13 trial, relatives of Samy Amimour, one of the attackers of the Bataclan, recounted their futile attempt to bring him back from Syria and the “shame” for having failed.
At the helm, Friday December 10, Azdyne Amimour, 74-year-old pensioner, and father of the concert hall suicide bomber. President Jean-Louis Périès repeats it several times to the witnesses: it is not them that we judge. “What we want to understand is how your son got there”, said the magistrate.
>> Trial of November 13: the logbook of an ex-hostage of the Bataclan, week 13
“It’s very difficult to explain. He had a good education, a flawless school career”, said the septuagenarian. “And then it happened at breakneck speed.” The old man, who will quickly ask to sit on a chair, tells about the first changes in his son’s high school “introverted” : the mosque, dress, prayer. “I said to myself ‘why not’, I prefer that than drug dealer”.
In the summer of 2013, using the pretext of a trip “in the south” with friends, Samy Amimour goes to Syria. He kisses his father before. “It intrigued me”, recognizes the latter. For a year, the family keeps contact via social networks. Azdyne Amimour, then his daughter Maya, who testifies after him, tell of the sending of photos of “kittens”, their concern not to “rush”. “I didn’t lecture him, I didn’t want him to break contact”, says Azdyne Amimour.
On the computer screen, one day he sees a Kalashnikov leaning against the wall of the cyber-café where his son is talking to him. Samy Amimour reassures his father. The weapon is not his. “It’s not often anyway, a Kalashnikov in an internet cafe?”, pushes the yard. “Didn’t you worry more than that?” “Yes a little”, advances the witness.
In the summer of 2014, he decided to follow in his son’s footsteps. “To get it back”. A trip that he had hidden from investigators after the attacks that killed 130 people in Paris and Saint-Denis, he admitted to the court. Death “four days” on the spot, he ensures not to shoot anything – “I had the impression of annoying him”, says Azdyne Amimour about her son who will send her “walk” every time he tries to “communicate”.
The court, the public prosecutor and the civil parties assail him with questions for several hours. Why didn’t he cut the internet if his son radicalized online? How to explain this “engagement towards violence” of a boy described as “kind and helpful” ? And in Syria, what did his son do? And him, what did he see? Why did he come home empty-handed so quickly?
The father hesitates, often answers aside, gets tangled up in the dates and goes into long digressions, annoying his interlocutors. “I tried”, “we never thought of the worst” … “He was completely lobotomized”.
Maya Amimour, 28, told how she had kept in touch with this big brother who suddenly took an interest in her. “I just took what he gave me, I was trying to exist”, recognizes at the helm this brunette with a long square, large glasses on her nose, who was 20 years old when her elder brother left. A lawyer for the civil parties wants to know what she felt on the news of her death at the Bataclan. “I was angry”she said with her hands clenched.
“These people are innocent, they don’t have to apologize”, shouts at one point one of the accused Mohamed Abrini from his box.
Maya Amimour is shaking at the helm. “Six years later I’m still mad at him. I’m still ashamed to have the name. I’m ashamed to walk past the victims. To say I’m sorry is an understatement, there are no words.”she said in tears. When she leaves the courtroom, a civil party will come and hug her.
Azdyne Amimour, he thought about another trip to Syria. When his son died, his partner was pregnant with him and he learned a few months ago that his granddaughter was alive and in a camp in the north of the country. “I would like to find her”, he said softly, saying he was ready to “leave”, “to see the little one”.