The propagandist of the Islamic State group Rachid Kassim, presumed dead in the Iraqi-Syrian zone, will be tried again by the special assize court for the beheading of a hostage and death threats against two French specialists in jihadism, learned AFP on Friday August 26 from a source familiar with the matter.
In an order dated August 4 and revealed by
Le Parisien
, an anti-terrorism investigating judge refers Rachid Kassim, born in January 1987, to the assizes, as well as two other people, his companion Justine Taquard and Mohammed Ghellab.
Accused of 'beheading' a man
All three, from Roanne, are presumed dead for several years in the Iraqi-Syrian zone to which they left in May 2015. The box of the accused should therefore be empty.
Rachid Kassim was reportedly killed in a drone strike in February 2017 in Mosul (Iraq).
In the absence of formal proof of death, French justice systematically maintains its proceedings.
In this case, which earned him a new referral to the assizes, he was first accused of having beheaded "
an unidentified man, prisoner of the IS group
", in a morbid execution video published in July 2016.
Rachid Kassim, in military uniform and face uncovered, welcomes the attack committed a few days earlier on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, before threatening France by brandishing the bloody head of his victim.
He is also criticized for his work as a propagandist for IS on Telegram or on Facebook, in which he fell after a leg injury.
The order lists the ten projects of terrorist acts of which he is considered to be the instigator.
Guilty of many murders
Among many files in which his name appears, Rachid Kassim is known for having remotely controlled the assassination of a couple of police officers in Magnanville (Yvelines) in June 2016, the failed attack on gas canisters near Notre-Dame cathedral three months later in Paris, or for his complicity in the assassination of Father Hamel in his church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray (Seine-Maritime) at the end of July 2016. In the Notre-Dame file as in that of Saint-Etienne du Rouvray, he was sentenced by default to life imprisonment.
Read alsoFailed attack on Notre-Dame: the court evokes the involvement of Rachid Kassim
These meetings will also be an opportunity to address his death threats against journalist David Thomson and the director of the Terrorism Analysis Center (CAT), Jean-Charles Brisard.
The latter told AFP that this dismissal “
testifies to the seriousness of the death threats, given the profile of the person who is at the origin of them.
At the time when he makes these threats, he is one of the main protagonists of IS
”.