"Do you think Abaaoud would have chosen him if he hadn't perceived his determination?" The prosecution requested Monday the maximum sentence, twenty years of imprisonment, against Reda Hame, a Parisian recruited and trained in Syria in June 2015 by Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the coordinator of the attacks of November 13.
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Reda Hame, a 34-year-old former IT technician, joined the Islamic State group in June 2015 in Syria. He stayed there eight days: for three days, Abdelhamid Abaaoud trained him in the Kalashnikov, then accompanied him to the Turkish border by giving him 2,000 euros and 500 dollars in cash and a mission: to carry out an attack in Europe.
"If you were given something to arm yourself with, would you be ready to shoot in the crowd?" Asked Abaaoud. "For example, imagine a rock concert", added "the emir". Five months later, three jihadist commandos, including Abaaoud, attacked the Bataclan during a concert, as well as the Stade de France and crowded terraces in Paris, killing 130 people.
Reda Hame was arrested in Paris in August 2015. He claims to have feigned to accept this murderous mission only to return to France. "I would never have hurt anyone in my life," he told the special assize court which has been judging him since Thursday. "When I saw what they were doing against civilians, I said to myself: They are crazy." Reda Hame, who has spent four and a half years in pre-trial detention, is on trial for participating in a terrorist criminal association. The Advocate General required twenty years of criminal confinement with a two-thirds security period. This is the maximum penalty incurred, the facts found dating back to 2015. The law of July 21, 2016 increased this sentence to thirty years.
Reda Hame "joined Syria at the time when the most relentless, those who are going to hit Europe, France, are leaving," said the magistrate of the National Counterterrorism Prosecutor's Office. "Should he himself participate in the attacks of November 13?", She asked. Despite the accused's denials, the question has hovered since the start of the trial.
"Were you operational?"
He is suspected of having met Mohamed Abrini, a relative of Abaaoud who passes for a logistician of the attacks of November 13. Another question from the Advocate General: "Do you think that Abaaoud would have chosen him if he had not perceived his determination?". Reda Hame behaved according to her "like a soldier" who "follows the instructions". Instead of returning directly to France, it passes through Eastern Europe, Prague and Budapest, as Abaaoud had asked him to.
In Paris, between his return and his arrest, he resumed a normal life: he went out with his girlfriend, went shopping. But he also does research on Youtube with the words "kamikaze" and "suicide bombers". Reda Hame insisted that he had made with the Islamic State group "an abandonment of post". He did not call Abdelhamid Abaaoud from Prague, as the latter had asked him. The accused, with short hair and a three-day beard, said that he threw away his contact details.
He explains that he wanted to return to France "very quickly" after his arrival in Raqqa. "When they kept my passport, I felt trapped." He was taken in charge by Abaaoud who, according to him, would have been interested in his discreet profile and his still valid passport.
Read also: Abaaoud's recruit in Syria, Reda Hame describes himself at the conference as "a conspirator"
This jihadist personally trained Reda Hame. "We were both leaving in his pick-up, 50 kilometers from Raqqa" to train. "What I was asked to do was not excessively difficult, not very technical." Abaaoud was looking for "efficiency", explained the accused: "to make the greatest number of victims possible, that was efficiency", bounced President Xavière Simeoni.
After three days, Abaaoud told him: "It's perfect, the training is over". "Were you operational?" asked the president. "Yes. (...) At the time I was able to use a Kalashnikov, ”replied Reda Hame.
The verdict is expected on Tuesday.