Five Kalashnikov-type assault rifles, seven handguns, plenty of ammunition, 105 grams of TATP - a substance prized by jihadists of the Islamic State (IS) group - 1.3 kg of industrial explosive, thousands of bullets steel.
On March 24, 2016, two days after the jihadist attacks in Brussels and three months before the Euro football, an arsenal "
of unprecedented magnitude
" was discovered in the Paris suburbs.
Seven men accused of planning a terrorist attack are on trial from Monday, March 8 in Paris.
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The arsenal was hidden in an apartment in Argenteuil (Val-d'Oise), rented for several months by Réda Kriket.
This 39-year-old repeat offender, "
long-time acquainted with jihadist theses
" according to the prosecution, has always denied having any plan to commit an attack: he wanted to earn a little money by reselling weapons, he said. he assured during the investigation.
A few days before the start of the hearing, Réda Kriket, like one of his 37-year-old co-defendants, Anis Bahri, challenged their lawyers.
This could have an impact on the holding of the trial, scheduled until April 9.
The question will be debated this Monday before the special assize court in Paris.
The investigation with drawers and European ramifications began in November 2015, with the arrest in Turkey of two men about to go to Syria according to the authorities.
By taking an interest in their entourage, the investigators went back to Anis Bahri and then to Réda Kriket.
The latter is not unknown to the anti-terrorism justice: in July 2015, he was sentenced by default to ten years' imprisonment in Belgium, at the trial of a jihadist network to Syria.
One of the main defendants, also absent, was Abdelhamid Abaaoud, one of the alleged organizers of the Paris and Saint-Denis attacks on November 13, 2015.
After weeks of surveillance and spinning, Réda Kriket was arrested on March 24, 2016 in Boulogne-Billancourt (Hauts-de-Seine), the accommodation he rented in Argenteuil under a false identity searched.
Anis Bahri was arrested three days later in Rotterdam, at the request of the French authorities.
At his home, 45 kg of ammunition were found.
"Operational heart"
Réda Kriket and Anis Bahri are suspected of having stayed in Syria between the end of 2014 and the beginning of 2015. And of having made several round trips in the weeks preceding their arrests between France, Belgium and the Netherlands, in the company of a third man, Abderrahmane Ameuroud, whose DNA will also be identified in the Argenteuil hideout.
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This 43-year-old Algerian was sentenced in Paris in 2005 at the trial of a network accused of having provided logistical support for the departure to Afghanistan of the assassins of Commander Massoud, killed two days before September 11.
Main accused at the trial which opens on Monday, the three men were according to the accusation "
the ideological and operational heart
" of the "
Argenteuil cell
", suspected of having been mandated by the Islamic State group to carry out an attack in France.
They are on trial along with four other men, aged 38 to 44, accused of participating to varying degrees in the planned attack.
To strike where and when?
The discovery of this arsenal of war showed "
obviously the preparations for an imminent terrorist action
", said the Paris prosecutor at the time, François Molins, even if "
no specific target has been identified
".
According to the prosecution, the “
Argenteuil cell
” - dismantled two days after the attacks in Brussels and a few weeks before the Euro football tournament, which was held in France in June-July 2016 - “
seemed to register
( ...)
in line with the attacks and planned attacks perpetrated in Europe since 2015
”.
