The Paris Court of Appeal examined on Wednesday January 31 the request for civil action from the mother of the man who killed Professor Dominique Bernard in Arras (Pas-de-Calais) on October 13, who considers herself collateral victim of his son's actions.
His lawyer, Maître Mikaël Benillouche, estimated that Mohammed Mogouchkov's act had repercussions on the mother and one of the attacker's sisters, who are not being prosecuted at this stage.
“They are victims for three reasons: they had to leave their home, the mother is presented today as a woman raising terrorists and her youngest daughter was taken from her, who is placed in a shelter
,” said the lawyer. in front of the press, at the end of the closed hearing.
The investigating chamber must render its decision on February 7, according to Maître Benillouche.
“Retaining the constitution of a civil party would be showing audacity”
for the court of appeal, recognized the lawyer, because
“the link between the act of terrorism and the consequences suffered by my client is indirect and the general prosecutor's office is opposed to it
.
The mother was heard on January 9 as a witness in the judicial investigation targeting two of her sons, the attacker Mohammed Mogouchkov, and his younger brother, indicted for complicity in assassination in connection with a terrorist enterprise.
“Taste of modern life”
Before this interrogation, she had been placed in police custody, just after the events.
She then told the police that she had never seen a weapon in her home or on Mohammed, according to a police summary from October 17 of which AFP was aware.
She had indicated that she had discovered a knife in her young son's bedroom a few days before the attack, and had hidden the weapon.
The mother also confided that she had
“religiously divorced”
from her husband, Yaqoub Mogouchkov, out of a
“taste for modern life”
and described a
“control”
of her ex-husband over Mohammed.
File S for Islamist radicalization, the father was expelled from France in 2018 to Russia, where he stayed for a year.
At the end of October, he told AFP from Armenia that he condemned his son's actions, blaming his ex-wife for not having
"succeeded in controlling the children"
.
Mohammed Mogouchkov, who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group, had been listed for Islamist radicalization since February 2021 after a report from National Education.