For a week, Mohamed Lamine Aberouz has been on trial before the Paris Special Assize Court for complicity in the assassinations of Jean-Baptiste Salvaing and Jessica Schneider, the police couple killed by Larossi Abballa. The central question is whether he acted alone.
Larossi Abballa’s face is displayed in close-up on the screens of the special assize court. “Bismillah” (“In the name of Allah”, in Arabic) is the first word that the terrorist utters in his video of demand, posted on social networks the evening of the attack and broadcast at the hearing on Monday October 2. The one who has just murdered a couple of police officers in the presence of their son, at their home in Magnanville (Yvelines) on June 13, 2016, in the name of the Islamic State group, delivers his text and verses from the Koran with a firm and calm tone , punctuated by a few sniffles.
The voice of Larossi Abballa, finally killed by the Raid, resonates in the room where one of his friends, Mohamed Lamine Aberouz, has been on trial for a week, notably for “complicity in assassination in relation to a terrorist enterprise”. The accused, seated in the box, facing the screens, proclaims his innocence. The whole issue of the trial is to know if he was involved in the attack, and to what extent, because his DNA was found on the right wrist rest of the two victims’ computers. However, on this protest video, which lasts around twelve minutes, only the face of Larossi Abballa appears.
A furtive image of the 3-year-old hostage
In the images that scroll, we can see in the background the sloping white ceiling of the pavilion of Jean-Baptiste Salvaing and Jessica Schneider, the couple of police officers killed, and to the left of the terrorist the Velux window of the mezzanine of the house. The shot only varies once, when Larossi Abballa films the child of his two victims, whom he took hostage after killing them. Leaning on the bottom of a sofa, the little boy, who was 3 years old at the time, is curled up on the floor, his face barely visible. At the sight of this scene, the family members of the murdered couple collapsed in tears on the benches of the civil parties.
The furtive image is accompanied by a comment from Larossi Abballa: “I call on you to favor the police officers, because I have just killed a police officer and his wife. Behind me, the little one, I don’t know what I’m going to do with him yet.” A few minutes earlier, he had just encouraged the “Muslims of France” to attack “the disbelievers” and to do “France tremble”, speaking sometimes in French, sometimes in Arabic. In the video, he also asks potential jihadists to attack journalists by name and “to target rappers”. “Kill Em”he chants six times.
Larossi Abballa’s cruelty is also displayed through his smiles. A grin distorts his mouth when he says: “Currently the police are around me, I have surprises in store for them.” However, his tone is much less vindictive at the end of the video. While he speaks of “martyrdom” he wishes to obtain, he then slips: “I admit, I don’t want that…” And to conclude: “In any case, we’re ready, they don’t know what we have on us.” The screen goes black. The room is frozen. “GOOD”continues the president of the special assize court, anxious not to let silence settle in.
Hypotheses on the use of the pronoun “on”
The magistrate continues the hearing of the witness present on the stand, the deputy raid commissioner who coordinated the operations on the evening of the attack. Although he had heard the terrorist’s voice on June 13, 2016 during the negotiations before the assault, this commissioner had never seen the video of the demand and viewed it for the first time on Monday at the hearing. He is asked about the question that remains unanswered at the end of the video: who does Larossi Abballa refer to by the pronoun “we” ?
“There is the ‘we’ for Muslims, and then ‘we’ and ‘us’ pronounced in an operational register. Do we agree on this double use?” the general advocate asks him. “That’s entirely my assessment.”, agrees the commissioner, who however refrains from any conclusions. As he did during the morning, he prefers to ask questions:
“What was he waiting for? Was something else supposed to happen that night? Was he waiting for an outside operation that never came?”
The commissioner who coordinated the assaultbefore the special assize court
So many hypotheses that the trial has not allowed us to refute or affirm for the moment.