Members of his paternal and maternal family, as well as a psychologist, spoke on the stand about the trauma of this little boy taken hostage at the age of 3 during the assassination of his parents in June 2016.
“If one day Damien* asks me questions, I want to be able to answer him.” Valentine, the sister of Jean-Baptiste Salvaing, police officer murdered on June 13, 2016 with his wife Jessica Schneider in Magnanville (Yvelines), took her courage in both hands to come and testify at the bar on Monday October 2. “My big brother told me: ‘If something happens to me, I want you to be the one to take care of my children’, she explains before the special assize court of Paris, as the sixth day of hearing in the trial of Mohamed Lamine Aberouz, accused of being the assassin’s accomplice, draws to a close. Orphaned at the age of 3, his nephew, who will soon be 11, has since been placed under his guardianship.
Damien went to live with her five days after the death of his parents. “As soon as something was wrong, he had fits, his excess emotion came out like that”, says Valentine Salvaing. The nights, especially, were “very complicated”.
“For two years, I stayed with him for an hour, or even two, before he fell asleep.”
Valentine, the sister of Jean-Baptiste Salvaingbefore the special assize court of Paris
Damien doesn’t deliver “not necessarily” to his aunt the contents of his nightmares. He also confided in the psychologist who took care of him shortly after the attack. “When he feels like he’s not doing well, he’s the one who says, ‘I need to go’”exposes the sister of the killed police officer. “It’s difficult for me too”recognizes this woman with auburn hair pulled up in a ponytail, who tries to mask the emotion that arises.
“There is a before and an after”
“Damien was the victim of real war trauma”, explains the psychologist, who also testifies at the bar on Monday. In addition to the numerous nightmares, which she confirms, she describes a little boy “in hyper vigilance, at the slightest noise, at the slightest door slam”. The therapist, specialized in child and adolescent psychotrauma, notes that this “lived with terror persists, for several months and several years”.
“The trauma occurs at the moment and lasts over time. It is still there today, even if he is better.”
Damien’s psychologistbefore the special assize court of Paris
“There is a before and an after for this little boy who has grown up a lotcontinues the psychologist, who saw him again a few days before testifying at the trial. The therapy and love he received allowed his speech to become free little by little.” However, at the hearing, the therapist wishes to nuance the analysis of this memory “traumatic”. During play scenes, the child, encouraged to play with plastic figurines in a sandbox to allow him to express his emotions, “involved a multiplicity of villains, which is interpreted as the horror fantasy which increases the monsters tenfold”. Impossible for her to draw a conclusion on the presence or not of the accused alongside Larossi Abballa, even if during a session, he had mentioned “two bad guys”. “Only one bad guy” can also be “represented by a multitude of figurines”she declared at the end of her hearing.
“His childhood was stolen from him”
To designate the terrorist, who briefly filmed him and held him hostage for several hours, before the Raid attacked, Damien said “the other”. The young boy said so at least “three times” to his aunt, underlines the president of the special assize court. “He said, ‘There’s a bad guy and a good guy, one who wanted to kill me and the other said, ‘Wait, not yet.'”details the magistrate, who questions Valentine Salvaing on this point. “I don’t ask him any questions, I’ve never talked about it with him”replies the child’s aunt.
If the holding of the trial has rekindled Damien’s trauma, his entire family seeks to preserve it. “His childhood was stolen from him”, protests his maternal grandmother, who has kept a strong bond with her grandson and regularly goes on vacation with him. She also wants, with her daughter, Jessica Schneider’s older sister, to denounce the rigorist vision of Islam claimed by the accused, which in their eyes “could never find its place in our country”.
This is not the position displayed by the family of Jean-Baptiste Salvaing, who preferred to issue, ahead of Monday’s hearing, a press release to denounce “the relay of erroneous information” on Damien and recall that articles of law protect the privacy and dignity of minor victims. The young boy has a lawyer, but he has never met her, according to the choice of his family, who want to prevent him from being confronted with justice too soon. “VS“It’s for him that I’m here”declares Valentine Salvaing.
“The only thing he asked me was, ‘Why?’ ‘Why mom and dad?'”
Valentine, the sister of Jean-Baptiste Salvaingbefore the special assize court of Paris
At the hearing, Damien’s aunt concedes that she still has no answer to give to this question. And she doesn’t expect to get one during the trial, scheduled to last until October 10.
* The first name has been changed.