The Court of Cassation is examining Thursday the appeal of Jawad Bendaoud, sentenced in 2019 to four years of imprisonment for having housed two jihadists of November 13, 2015, an appeal which relates only to the damages he must pay. A few meters from the trial of the attacks which left 130 dead in Saint-Denis and Paris, the magistrates of the highest jurisdiction of the judicial order will examine the admissibility of the hundreds of civil parties in the case of Jawad Bendaoud. Relaxed at first instance, the latter was found guilty on appeal in March 2019 of "
concealment of terrorist criminals
", for having provided an apartment where Abdelhamid Abaaoud and his accomplice Chakib Akrouh had withdrawn after the attacks.
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The two men died there in the assault of the Raid police on November 18, 2015, with an accomplice and cousin of Abdelhamid Abaaoud, Hasna Aït Boulhacen.
Jawad Bendaoud, who has always maintained that he was unaware of hosting jihadists at the time, was also ordered to pay hundreds of thousands of euros to victims of the attacks, families, police officers or residents of the building concerned.
The court of appeal considered that they had suffered damage linked to the fact that Jawad Bendaoud had delayed the arrest of the criminals, creating in these people an additional anxiety to see new attacks occur.
An interpretation contested by the appeal.
Already convicted in two other cases
"
It would be particularly shocking if the victims of the attacks were excluded from the trial of those who, by their silence, delayed the arrest of the perpetrators of the November 13 massacre,
" said Patrice Spinosi, lawyer for civil parties. The appeal does not, however, relate to Jawad Bendaoud's prison sentence, which is final. An appeal from his former co-defendant, Youssef Aït Boulahcen, will also be examined. He raises the same question concerning the civil parties and also contests the firm four-year sentence he was inflicted for "
non-denunciation of a terrorist crime
". Hasna's brother Aït Boulhacen was sentenced for not having denounced the new attack that his cousin was planning to commit.
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The Advocate General, whose role at the Court of Cassation is to defend the law, spoke out in favor of the rejection of these appeals.
Jawad Bendaoud, 35, used to gunfire and fanciful statements, is still in prison.
He was convicted in 2019 in two other cases.
The end of his sentence is set for April 2022 and the sentence enforcement judge must rule in December on a possible adjustment before that date.
