Sentences ranging from five years to irreducible life imprisonment. At the end of a three-day marathon indictment, the National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office (Pnat) detailed, on Friday June 10, the sentences it is seeking against the twenty defendants tried in the context of the trial of the attacks of November 13, 2015 The Advocates General notably requested that they all be declared guilty by the special Assize Court of Paris.
>> Trial of the November 13 attacks: follow live the latest news after the requisitions against the twenty accused
Unsurprisingly, the heaviest sentence is required against Salah Abdeslam, the main defendant, “in view of the immense gravity of the facts with which he is charged”. The only living member of the November 13 commando is the only one to appear for “murders, kidnappings and attempted murders in an organized gang in connection with a terrorist enterprise”, and not for complicity. The penalty incurred is the same, but the Advocates General insisted on distinguishing him from his co-defendants by pronouncing the irreducible life sentence. This sanction, rare, makes the possibility of obtaining an adjustment of sentence and therefore a release is very small.
For three days, the three representatives of the Pnat followed one another in front of the transparent desk. They strove, with great meticulousness, to “rebuild” room by room “the puzzle” of the worst terrorist attacks committed on French soil. On Wednesday, Advocate General Camille Hennetier, the first, invites the special Assize Court of Paris to “examine the elements as a whole and put them into perspective”. She first turns her gaze on the side of the civil parties.
“What will we remember from this hearing? What images? What words will remain? Your verdict, of course.”
Camille Hennetier, General Counselduring the indictment
In the eyes of the magistrate, it will also and above all remain from this historic trial “the names of the disappeared last September”, “the accounts of the victims”, “the horror of the raw facts and the scenes of crimes”, “the presence of blood and powder”, “the cruelty of the terrorists who complete blow by blow” and “the dantesque hell of the Bataclan”.
However, as Camille Hennetier points out, this trial did not allow “to understand barbarism, only sometimes to approach it a little”. “From a trial does not always arise the truth but a truth: the judicial truth”, she warns. And admit: “There are still gray areas. On the accused themselves. On the facts too.” For the Advocate General, “all these questions that torment us have an answer and this answer is in the box”. She insists that “Most of the accused know but will not answer. They know almost everything. But they are silent. And will remain silent until death”. Because the long months of debate, since last September, are coming to an end without having revealed all the ins and outs of the attacks. The prosecution had to deal with it.
“The file keeps its mysteries but we will offer you a reading key”announces Camille Hennetier at the start of this river indictment. “Our need to understand is commensurate with what we have suffered”continues, at his side, Nicolas Braconnay, second general counsel to carry the voice of the Pnat.
He and the other two representatives of the prosecution want to articulate their demonstration in a chronological way, in order to forget nothing: “The birth of the project in the Iraqi-Syrian zone first, then the organization of the attacks, then the attacks themselves, and, finally, the aftermath of November 13 and the reconstitution of a cell in Brussels” . To do this, Nicolas Braconnay begins by redrawing the structure of the jihadist core at the origin of the attacks.
“The person of Osama Atar is the only one who makes the link between the different groups of the 33 members of the terrorist cell”, believes the Advocate General. Presumed dead in the Iraqi-Syrian zone, he is one of five executives of the Islamic State group tried in their absence. It was against them that the prosecution began by announcing the required sentences on Friday afternoon. She asked for life sentences, including for Osama Atar an incompressible security period.
Against Ahmed Dahmani, the sixth absentee judged by default by the special assize court in Paris because he was imprisoned in Turkey, the anti-terrorist prosecution requested 30 years’ imprisonment, accompanied by a two-thirds security period.
The challenge of the Advocates General was to apprehend the terrorist cell as “a whole”, but to require according to the principle of the individualization of the sorrows. Thus, Camille Hennetier describes, on Thursday, “experienced jihadists”of the “young recruits” become “war machines, killing machines” : “They all had the same death potential, the same training.” The commando members are “interchangeable”, continues his colleague Nicolas Braconnay. Nevertheless, he assures us, the Pnat does not “no confusion between the levels of responsibility of each”.
The accusation “challenges the expression, often heard, of ‘second knives'”. “There would have been no attacks” without the logistics, he argues, citing “transportation”, “food” Where “weapons research”. “Basically, the result is the same: they fed the beast”he insists.
Not all of them are convinced jihadists, all do not act with the aim of committing an attack by proxy. But all of them have agreed to support a terrorist project.
Nicolas Braconnay, General Counselduring the indictment
This is why the representatives of the Pnat require against Farid Kharkhach, accused of having provided false papers to the cell of November 13, a sentence of six years of imprisonment, “convinced that he acted out of cowardice and greed”. The public ministry is more severe towards Ali El Haddad Asufi, “who manages the trips”and is asking for a 16-year prison sentence with a two-thirds security period.
But it is even more so against Mohamed Bakkali, described as “superintendent of terror”, a “centerpiece that concentrates all the attention of the cell”. The accusation demands against him life imprisonment, accompanied by a security period of 22 years and a definitive ban on entry into French territory.
About the “little hands”Abdellah Chouaa, Hamza Attou and Ali Oulkadi, accused of having helped Salah Abdeslam on his run, the PNational Anti-Terrorist Arquet required five to six years in prison. The Advocate General emphasizes the particularity of these defendants, who appear free, and “exemplary behavior” during the trial. Nevertheless, certain sentences required against these three men accused of “complacency” and to have accepted a “pact with the devil” – in this case Salah Abdeslam – are accompanied by a warrant of committal.
Camille Hennetier is just as sharp when she announces that she is requesting life imprisonment with a period of thirty years of security against the Swede Osama Krayem and the Tunisian Sofien Ayari. Because, in his eyes they are “well and good” “accomplices” attacks committed in Paris and Saint-Denis. Just as the prosecution has “the conviction” that they had to “commit an attack on the evening of November 13” at Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam.
Camille Hennetier describes them as “silent” of the trial. “Their silence makes us uncomfortable, because it makes us feel like we have to judge them on the emptiness”but it must be interpreted “like contempt for your court and the victims”. “If silence is a right, it should not benefit them”, she intimates. “So they are accomplices”had said the day before his colleague Nicolas Braconnay.
In the eyes of the prosecution, on the other hand, the “square” of Salah Abdeslam within the jihadist cell “is other than that of an accomplice. He did not just help in the preparation, he participated in it”argues Camille Hennetier from the start of the requisitions, recalling that the main accused is dismissed as “co-author” attacks. And during these long hours of requisitions, the Pnat explains thathe does not believe the version of the facts that Salah Abdeslam delivered during his final interrogation in mid-April. Wearing an explosive belt on the evening of November 13, 2015, the 32-year-old accused explained that he had given up “out of humanity” to blow himself up in a cafe in the 18th arrondissement of Paris.
For the prosecution, his lies “telescope” and “this defense does not stand up to examination of the case file”. The public ministry, which refutes the hypothesis of a “Salah Abdeslam in the shadow of his brother”describes him as an accused who “seeks at all costs to pass himself off as a terrorist fallen from the sky”. “Despite his words, despite his tears”, Salah Abdeslam “shut in” in “a straightjacket”showed up “unable to express any remorse”believes Camille Hennetier.
The three Advocates General, who followed one another in front of the transparent desk for three days, are also severe with regard to Mohamed Abrini. “The man in the hat” of the attacks in Brussels in March 2016, was also “well planned” for November 13, according to the public prosecutor. He conceded it himself, for the first time, during the hearing, and Advocate General Nicolas Braconnay acknowledged during the indictment “a small step of Mohamed Abrini towards the truth”. But according to him, he immediately did “two steps back”. “We are convinced that Salah Abdeslam and Mohamed Abrini have not said everything”he insists.
The two men “remain steeped in ideology”, believes Camille Hennetier, before announcing that a sentence of life imprisonment with a security period of 22 years is required against Mohamed Abrini. Because “he has a less important role than Salah Abdeslam in logistics”she justifies. “There is no element to foresee a favorable future development”however, believes the magistrate, who shares this observation for most of the other defendants.
The two men, like all the others, listen very carefully to all the sentences required and the conclusion of the general counsel.
Your verdict will not heal visible or invisible wounds, but it will ensure that justice and law have the last word.
Camille Hennetier, General Counselduring the indictment
The defendants stand up and then talk to their lawyers. Because it is towards the defence, whose pleadings begin on Monday, that all eyes are now turning.