He is accused of having injured six soldiers from Operation Sentinel in August 2017 with his car in Levallois-Perret (Hauts-de-Seine) before fleeing: Hamou Benlatreche challenged Monday at the start of his trial in appeal the facts with which he is charged.
"I don't recognize anything you said
," said the 42-year-old Algerian, who appeared before the Paris Special Assize Court of Appeal in a wheelchair, shot and wounded during his arrest.
No criminal record
As in his first trial, the accused, who speaks Arabic, even if he understands and speaks French according to experts who came to testify, chose to refute the accusation of attempted murder on people agents of public authority in relation to a terrorist enterprise.
In the first instance, it had earned him a sentence of thirty years' imprisonment accompanied by a security sentence of twenty years.
He faces life imprisonment.
The first day of his appeal trial was devoted to examining the personality of Hamou Benlatreche, son of a former Algerian police officer, described as
"silent"
and
"naturally calm"
even though he may be prone
"to fits of anger".
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“I never fought
,” he defended himself, annoyed when the court evokes a
“milk soup” temperament.
“Are you impulsive?
Do you ever get out of your hinges?
, insists President Emmanuelle Bessone.
"Never !"
, replies Hamou Benlatreche in an exasperated tone.
Third in a family of five children, he left Algeria at the age of 29 for medical reasons.
Living alone in France, he attended reputedly traditionalist mosques in Ile-de-France but was not known to be
"radicalized".
Neatly cut black hair, he wears a mustache but no beard.
Before the facts, he had no criminal record.
“Voluntary action”
On August 9, 2017, driving his VTC, he mowed down soldiers who were about to go on patrol, before fleeing and being arrested, five hours later, on a highway near Calais (Pas- of Calais).
“The action of hitting the soldiers was voluntary and could not be explained by a fleeting discomfort”,
had judged the special assize court at first instance, also inflicting a definitive ban on French territory to Hamou Benlatreche, arrived in France in 2009 for treatment.
Six soldiers were injured during the attack, three of them seriously, and a total of nine soldiers were recognized as
“potential victims”.
During his arrest, when he refused to comply, the police used firearms to stop him running.
Hamou Benlatreche was hit by five bullets, notably in the chest, right arm and left shoulder.
During his first trial, Hamou Benlatreche, who suffers from a brainstem cavernoma, a serious malformation of the blood vessels of the brain, supported the thesis of the accident.
He explained that he lost control of his vehicle due to discomfort and that his right leg remained pressed on the accelerator.
It was
"out of fear"
that he fled, he maintained.
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The court had however ruled that
"the statements of the three soldiers who described the determined look of the accused"
before the impact and
"the trajectory of the vehicle"
advancing slowly before forking and accelerating suddenly
"were not compatible with
his explanations.
Moreover, she considered that her passages in this way
“almost never taken”
on at least two occasions in the days preceding the facts signed the premeditation of the attack.
She also retained the
"relation with a terrorist enterprise",
evoking the interest of the accused for the actions of the Islamic State group and judging that his act reflected a
"willingness to intimidate the authorities and to transmit terror in the population".
The appeal trial is scheduled until February 17.
