the logbook of a former Bataclan hostage, week 20

Since September 8, 2021 the trial of the attacks of November 13 is held in Paris. David Fritz Goeppinger, victim of these attacks is now a photographer and author. He agreed to share via this logbook his feelings, in image and in writing, during the long months of this river trial, which began on Wednesday September 8, 2021 before the special assize court in Paris. Here is his account of the nineteenth week of hearing.

>> The Nineteenth Week Diary

Tuesday, March 1. It’s 1 p.m., I look at my phone: “Are you there my friend?”, it’s Bruno. I’m a little late this afternoon, the sports session lasted longer than expected. After two long weeks of low, the trial finally restarts. In addition to the Covid health crisis, since last Thursday Russia invaded Ukraine, war is on Europe’s doorstep but the resumption of the hearing seems unperturbed, justice is taking its course but my mind remains turned towards our neighbors.

This week, we find the Belgian investigators and their U-shaped office upside down. Each day, they will come back to the observations made in the caches and vehicles found a few months before the attacks. The auction room is sparse today, only a few journalists and a researcher made the trip. It must be said that the long technical monologues of the investigators generally do not attract crowds. After new constitutions of civil parties, the projection starts and the voice of the police officer identified with a series of figures resounds in the enclosures. Listening to him, I recognize a man whom we have already heard from last December.

For this first day, the investigator submits the investigations made in the accommodation and vehicles used by the cell behind the attacks between August and September 2015. After some technical problems to launch his presentation, punctuated by “excuse me, Mr. President”, the investigator finally starts. He begins by referring to an accused not present in the box: Ahmed Dahmani, a childhood friend of Salah Abdeslam (incarcerated in Turkey) and a major absentee from the trial. He goes on to refer to the vehicle found in a parking lot that helped arrest the man. In the car, investigators found 14 false identity cards, an Islamic State flag, wigs and glasses. He then projects some of the finds. Despite the wig and the glasses, it is easy to recognize the features of Salah Abdeslam on one of the fake cards.

I follow the testimony with attention while the investigator presents, cache after cache, the finds and seals found. In order to better visualize the apartments visited, he projects plans and photographs of the places as if to slip us into the intimacy of the former occupants. In the image: cups, cutlery, plates and toothbrushes used by the terrorist cell behind the attacks. On the plans, in red, are indicated the places where traces of explosives were found. Behind these projections is a fragment of their daily life, of the moments they spent together before sowing death in the streets of Paris. During the suspension, I think back to the end of“conspiratorial apartments” borrowed by the press from the police. I then imagined dark, windowless and hidden accommodation, but the red brick house in a quiet neighborhood presented to us by the investigator makes me lie, the plunge into the footsteps of the terrorists and the accused is shocking. The photos of the different accommodations look like those of a disastrous real estate agent.

After the suspension, the president announces that he has no questions and neither does the court. It is Nicolas Braconnay, general counsel who represents the National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office, who starts the questions. After a while, he returns to one of the presentation slides. On this one, a high angle photograph on which we can see, laid flat, objects found in one of the apartments. The Advocate General points to the fact that the white threads seen in the photograph are the same as those found on the remains of the explosive vests of the Stade de France and the Bataclan, the investigator abounds. My mind registers the image. Only two lawyers for the civil parties, Maître Topaloff and Maître Coviaux, question the police officer.

I stop writing here for today, I can no longer follow.

I resume writing on Wednesday, March 2. I’m sitting alone in the auction room and unlike yesterday I’m ahead. In the background, the projector fans accompany my words; in the image, a few gendarmes and a civil party walk around the main room. This is not the first time that I have the impression of witnessing the awakening of a sort of village version of the Palais de Justice. In recent days as well as yesterday, my mind has been turned to the Mondeguer family, and more specifically to Jean-François Mondeguer, who died just two years ago. It’s not the first time I’ve talked about him in the logbook, including because one of my big encounters in this trial is his son, Gwendal. It is alongside Jean-François and those of Stéphane (my soup *) that I intervene in class at the end of 2019, at the Saint-Michel-de-Picpus high school. From memory, I remember the modesty with which he evokes his daughter, his family, his pain but also what allowed him to continue to fight: justice. Very involved in the community of victims of terrorism, Jean-François was a member of Life for Paris, 13Onze15 Fraternité et Vérité, but also a member of more historical associations, such as the AFVT**. Unlike many civil parties (including myself) he has been frequenting the courtrooms linked to the attacks since 2018, he had also gone to Belgium on purpose. Gwendal tells me that he knew the file like the back of his hand. Over the past few months, I sometimes stare at the pews in the large wooden courtroom and imagine him staring intently at the court. Looking at his son, I understand that it is he who has taken up the torch, his gaze turned towards V13.

A few journalists enter the auction room and pull me out of my thoughts, behind me, the head of fire safety groans, it’s hot, surely the beginnings of spring. For this post-break post, I wanted to share this photo of Jean-François and Lamia that Gwendal always keeps on him, so that we remember.

This afternoon, the interviewed investigator continues in line with that of yesterday and returns to the investigation of the various caches. When the hearing resumed, the president read the judgments of the assize court on the subject of a refusal to institute civil proceedings. We wait a few minutes for the connection with Belgium to be made.

The investigator begins her presentation and we are immediately thrown into the limbo of the Belgian files. It describes precisely the modus operandi used by the cell (part of which is present at the hearing) to contract leases in order to have access to housing in Belgium. We find the false identity documents already presented yesterday, here Mohamed Bakkali still decked out in a wig and a pair of glasses. On a map, we track, thanks to green dots, the movements of all the actors in the attacks. We find the same type of photographs of apartments as yesterday, with great shots of flash and wide-angle, vacation rental style. The investigator explains: “Searching for traces of TATP*** was carried out in the apartment, and numerous residues were found in all the rooms.” She goes on to give plenty of details about the movements and telephone connections around the apartment and concludes by projecting the image of a plastic shopping bag filled with bolts, bolts that I know only too well. The presentation continues in the same way for all caches. I think back to my departure from the Palace last night and a discussion overheard. Stopped by the roadblock of police officers on duty on the Saint-Michel bridge, a taxi asks the peacekeeper: “Can’t we pass?” and this one to answer: “No, it’s for the Bataclan trial.” This invariably sends me back to the shortcuts used by many people to refer to attacks, such as “Charlie’s attacks” about the attacks of January 2015.

Difficult to concentrate on the proceedings today, but I have the impression that the hearing will not last long since only one investigator must be heard and that we are already at the questions of the prosecution. During the suspension, I stroll through the halls of the Palace with Gwendal in search of a coffee. At the resumption of the hearing, Counsel Rezlan begins the questions of the defense while I begin editing the note.

See you tomorrow.

*Contraction of “mate” and “hostage”, expression used by the ex-hostages of the corridor of the Bataclan to refer to each other.
**French association of victims of terrorism
***Triacetone triperoxide, explosive used by the bombers of the November 13 attacks.