In an assize trial, the days follow one another and are not always alike.
On March 8, on the first day of the debates, Reda Kriket, accused of having fomented an attack project in 2016, rejected his judges and their rules by recognizing only the law of Allah (Le Figaro of March 9).
The remarks recalled that of Salah Abdeslam, the only living author of the attacks of November 13, 2015, who proclaimed his
"confidence in Allah"
before a Belgian court in 2018. Or that of Farid Ikken tried in Paris in 2020 and sentenced to 23 years of criminal imprisonment for an attack on the police, who affirmed:
"one must not be afraid of the truth, one must be afraid of Allah"
.
Monday, on the day of his questioning by the specially composed Assize Court, the same Reda Kriket finally agreed to answer for hours the very specific questions of the president, those of his defenders, Yassine Bouzrou and Xavier Nogueras, but also , at least in part, to those of the prosecution.
And the worshiper of Allah a bit haughty, born January 17, 1982 in Courbevoie, metamorphosed into a "simple" delinquent presenting a defense of "robber" with his silences and even his eternal
"I will not lie to you "
.
Hold-up
Hair and black beard, his hand in front of his mouth, the defendant's voice stream finds it difficult to cross the barrier of the mask.
But his message gets through anyway.
And it is very simple: the arsenal found in Argenteuil during his arrest on March 24, 2016 (five Kalashnikovs, a submachine gun, seven handguns, ammunition, explosives, more than ten thousand metal balls, etc.) , was intended for an armed robbery.
At the time, Reda Kriket was on the run.
"A run is expensive",
he blurted out in front of the Court in an initial declaration,
"the dream of any thug is the heist of the century"
.
The "thug" therefore wanted "to retire to stop everything".
He returned to it a little later, specifying:
"I did not have the courage [to go to Syria], I was looking for the retirement plan that would put me at safety"
.
According to Kriket, this
"retirement plan"
would have taken the form of an attack on a
"deposit of money"
from drug trafficking.
Exercise to hear it potentially less bloody than a van attack.
“We try to do as little violence as possible, he
analyzes,
and robbing dealers is less complicated”
.
We can not help thinking then that the six automatic weapons, the seven handguns, the explosives (including the TATP certainly tasted by the robbers but also by the terrorists) and the quantities of ammunition seem a little oversized for the surgery.
"All these weapons, it was suspicious"
As for the mysterious presence of the metal balls, used by the bombers to increase the impact of their devices, it is difficult to see their usefulness in a thug attack.
Reda Kriket mentions a use for airsoft weapons.
On the arsenal, he recognizes moreover
"that all this equipment, all these weapons was suspect, especially in 2016"
but adds
"I had already been convicted of terrorism and the police had an idea in mind"
.
It is up to the President of the Assize Court to refocus the debates on the radicalization of the accused during a period in prison in 2010-2011 and on the proposed attack which is attributed to him.
In the array of convictions for common law acts perpetrated in France and Belgium between the end of the 90s and the 2010s, the magistrate dwells on the default conviction of July 29, 2015 by a Belgian court.
Reda Kriket was then sentenced to ten years for his participation in the activities of a terrorist group in Molenbeek-Saint Jean.
Directed by Khalid Zerkani, presented as a leader who sent eighteen of his acquaintances to the Syrian-Iraqi zone.
Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the boss of the commandos of November 13, 2015, was sentenced by default in this case.
But the investigation does not establish any link between him and Kriket.
On the other hand, the latter would have played an
"important role"
in the financing and material aid to the Zerkani group.
A note from the Belgian State Security also states that the accused went to Syria via Turkey at the end of 2014.
In Turkey to go to the beach
French investigators have the same conviction.
And the accused went to Turkey from the beginning of September 2014 to the end of 2015. Officially to treat his teeth, all evidence (radio, bill…) having disappeared, and to have a good time, in particular
“at the beach ".
"Swimming in December?
»
Wonders the public prosecutor.
"I was talking about September,"
retorts the accused.
On the convictions of the Franco-Belgian police, he also has his answer:
"They assumed that I left [in the Syrian-Iraqi zone] but I did not leave"
.
The president also reminds him that his sister explained that after the attack on Charlie Hebdo, he would have declared,
"angry": "so much the better for them if they died, they made fun of the prophet, it is everything they deserved ”
.
But the accused does not remember using those words.
And rejects the words of another member of his family who describes him as a radicalized inciting to leave for Syria.
"I am given the label of terrorist",
affirms Kriket who, on occasion, does not remember any more, or remains silent, as at this moment when the president of the Court asks him if, during a stay in Thailand in 2012, he frequented the shooting stands (an activity appreciated by thugs on vacation there) ... He does not fully recover his speech when he is asked to detail the
religious
“revelation”
he had in prison.
“The best thing that has happened to me, he blurted out, better than my father, better than my mother, better than my child, is Islam”
.
And Allah suddenly returns to the courtroom.