They were arrested on April 18, 2017, five days before the first round of the presidential election, suspected of an "
imminent
" attack: the trial of a jihadist duo, an ace of concealment associated with a repeat offender, opens Thursday in Paris.
Clément Baur, 29, and Mahiedine Merabet, 35, must answer for four weeks before the special assize court of this plan of attack, the target of which could not be determined with certainty after four years of investigation. survey.
This file, which has become emblematic for anti-terrorism, is the result of cyber infiltration and extensive telephone surveillance which made it possible to identify these two radicalized men, co-detained in 2015 at the Lille-Sequedin remand center for acts of common right.
It was in particular the search in early April 2017 by Mahiedine Merabet for a contact to transmit to the Islamic State (IS) a video of allegiance and demands that alerted the anti-terrorist services.
On April 12, a cyberinfiltrator received a video showing dozens of munitions laid out on a table in such a way as to write "
the law of retaliation
“, next to a machine gun, an IS flag and the front page of Le Monde of March 16, 2017 with a photo of candidate François Fillon, followed by a montage of children victims of bombardments in Syria.
Six days later, Mahiedine Merabet and Clément Baur were arrested near the "student" apartment they rented in Marseille.
The search seized a large arsenal: the Uzi submachine gun, three 7.65 mm caliber pistols, hundreds of ammunition and a bag of bolts.
Investigators also discovered more than 3.5 kg of TATP, an unstable explosive popular with jihadists and already used during the attacks of November 13, 2015 in Paris and Saint-Denis.
A dry part on shelves, a homemade grenade consisting of 250 grams of TATP is ready for use.
“You just have to blast them, explode them”
The exploitation of digital media highlights all-out Internet searches on the duo's potential targets: libertine clubs, bars, a kosher restaurant and a Marine Le Pen meeting in Marseille, scheduled for April 19.
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During the investigation, Mahiedine Merabet, a repeat offender from Roubaix (North), disputes any plan for a murderous attack, admitting however to having considered "
a coup de brilliance
" by detonating a homemade grenade near the meeting of the National Front candidate.
But to “
scare
”, excluding attacking civilians.
Clément Baur, who assumed his ideological affiliation with IS, assured that he only wanted to cause "
material damage
" on institutional targets, in retaliation for strikes in Syria.
The conversations intercepted without his knowledge during his visiting rooms in prison are more fruitful: “
Baghdadi (ex-head of the Islamic State, editor's note) he is right, you shouldn't talk to them, you just have to blast them, explode them
, ”he said in particular.
Ace of Concealment
Clément Baur's career is atypical.
Born in the Val-d'Oise, he would have converted to Islam at the age of 14 or 15 in contact with the Chechen community of Nice where he lives with his mother.
He learned Russian on his own, then Arabic.
At 17, he left for Belgium where he applied for asylum under a first false identity.
This ace of concealment will file other asylum applications in France and Germany, pretending to be a Chechen refugee.
It is precisely for having held false papers that he will be imprisoned with Mahiedine Merabet for a few weeks in Lille.
Read alsoThese terrorists presumed dead and who are nevertheless judged
The two men had gone into hiding in December 2016 after the administrative search of the home of Mahiedine Merabet, in which Clément Baur was, under an alias.
They will leave for Nancy before joining Marseille.
The investigators are convinced that during his winding journey, Clément Baur frequented the terrorist cell of Verviers in Belgium, that of Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the operational head of the November 13 commandos, and that he was in contact in Germany with Anis Amri, the author of the truck attack on the Berlin Christmas market in 2016 (12 dead).
Neither the lawyers of Clément Baur, nor that of Mahiedine Merabet wished to speak on the file before the trial.
Ten other men are tried alongside them, accused of having provided arms and ammunition.
The verdict is expected on February 3.
