Considered the most radical of the four defendants, Alexandre Gilet appeared on Wednesday before the special assizes of Paris. A five-hour interrogation where the man struggled to convince.
Alexandre Gilet is 27 years old. He stands straight, all muscle in the box. Before the special assizes of Paris, the former gendarme from Grenoble recognizes that at the time he was called online “French Crusader“, THE “french crusader“, and participated in internet discussions called “how to kill properly“, “son of a bitch to burn alive” or “Christmas in Auschwitz“, on the forum “Waffenkraft“. Of the four young people from the neo-Nazi movement accused of having prepared terrorist attacks on French territory between 2017 and 2018, he is considered the most radical and the most determined of the group.
During the five hours of interrogation, Wednesday, June 28, he does not lower his head, says assume when the president scrolls through photos of him Kalashnikov in hand in front of a flag of the black sun, belonging to Nazi iconography. Placed in pre-trial detention for four years, he does not deny either the numerous weapons and the 640 cartridges found in his home. Regarding the chemicals also discovered at his home, Alexandre Gilet explains that he wanted to try to make TATP, an explosive known to terrorists.
There are also the shooting training videos in the forest: “it’s starting to do a lot, isn’t it?“, asks the Advocate General. “Yes, it’s starting to do a lot“, replies the person concerned, barely destabilized.
The Licra and a meeting of Jean-Luc Mélenchon targeted
“You are at the time a policeman and you train in the forest with assault rifles“, continues the representative of the public ministry. “Yesresponds the accused again, I was fully aware that it was illegal”. The magistrate gets annoyed:finally sir, there are illegal and illegal… it’s not smoking a joint on Friday night at home! And 21 Kalashnikov magazines anyway?“.”I like guns, that’s all. It was just compulsive shopping“, replies Alexandre Gilet, before continuing in the same fairly neutral tone: “I would never have acted out, I didn’t have the psychic abilities to murder people. I had no bad intentions“His explanations struggle to convince.
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The president details the many elements of the file which suggest that the attack plans were consistent. First the war press release found in his computer, for an attack planned on November 13, 2018 to avenge the terrorist attacks in Paris exactly three years earlier. The idea was to attack places frequented by Muslims or “Marxist priests who have been imposing the invasion of Europe for years“.
The president further cites the twenty-page manifesto that the accused says he wrote in one day, titled “guerrilla tactics and operations“, like that of Anders Breivik, the mass killer who killed 77 people in 2011 in Norway. In the document are the different attack possibilities: the ram truck with a warning if ever bodies come to seize the wheels, the swords and sabers, the shootings for “go out in the street to get cockroaches“. “I wrote this out of anger but there was nothing prepared, nothing concrete”comments Alexandre Gilet
Among the targets he had mentioned to his friends, now his co-defendants: prayer rooms, a meeting of the Council of Jewish Institutions of France, the premises of the League against Racism and Anti-Semitism, a meeting of Jean- Luc Mélenchon or the European Parliament.
“It was to impress the others in the group that I said that, but in real life I wouldn’t have done anything.”
Alexander Vestin front of the special seats
When the Advocate General mentions his Google searches on the exact geolocation and entries of several of these places, Alexandre Gilet’s balancing act becomes difficult. The man loses his nerves a little.
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His lawyer then tries to leave another image of him at the end of the interrogation. “Your purchases of weapons, your research on your computer, it was never on encrypted servers? – No, I never concealed anything, the proof that I was not preparing anything in reality“.
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She ends:And who is Alexandre Gilet today?“. The One Who Says Itself Now”just far right“, close to the ideas of the Hungarian leader Viktor Orban or the Italian Georgia Meloni explains that he wants “reintegrate into society“, which he has”realize the gravity“of what he is accused of.”I want to work, have a family, move on“, he concludes.
Alexandre Gilet faces 30 years in prison. The verdict will be given on Friday, June 30.