Mourad Farès trial: "With or without him, I would have gone to Syria," says a former jihadist.

A smuggler, for sure, but not a recruiter. At the trial of Mourad Farès, his former protégés tried, this Wednesday, to minimize the role of this 35-year-old man, considered as one of the main beaters of jihadists.

In a resounding interview delivered to the "Vice" site in February 2014, the native of Thonon-les-Bains (Haute-Savoie) boasted of having rallied 60 people to his cause. "All the jihadists we talk about in the newspapers have passed through me," he claimed, quoting by name "the ten young people from Strasbourg" (Bas-Rhin).

These Strasbourg people, here they are, who are parading as witnesses before the special assize court which has tried Mourad Farès since the beginning of the week. With the concern of mitigating the responsibility of the accused. "I do not consider him as a recruiter," says Karim Mohamed-Aggad, interviewed from the prison where he is serving the nine-year prison sentence pronounced in 2017 by the court of appeal for his stay in Syria between December 2013 and April 2014.

"I don't attribute recruiting power to him"

"Personally, I already intended to go to Syria," continues the brother of Foued Mohamed-Aggad, one of the Bataclan attackers in November 2015 in Paris. Mourad Farès did not come to put a knife under our throat. He sensitized people via his videos on what was happening in Syria but he is not a recruiter. The comments he made in the interview were to lather, because he was still in the area. I left of my own free will. With or without Mourad Farès, I would have left for Syria […] I do not attribute to him the power of a recruiter or a guru. "

However, the President underlines the role played by the accused at numerous stages in the recruitment of members of this sector in Strasbourg. In January 2013, for example, Karim Mohamed-Aggad and one of his comrades went to a meeting he led in La Courneuve (Seine-Saint-Denis) on the theme of hijra (immigration to Muslim land). "It was about the departure to Syria, we talked about the context," evades the witness.

The lawyer then exhumes an exchange of SMS between him and one of his relatives the day after this meeting and in which he is particularly enthusiastic for hijra. "Your interlocutor says to you: How long did you stay at Paname to make this new speech? Explains the representative of the public prosecutor's office, wondering about the real impact of this meeting. "It just comforted me," says Karim Mohamed-Aggad.

In May, Mourad Farès goes to Strasbourg for two days to meet the members of the group. "We discussed the war in Syria," says Karim Mohamed-Aggad. "If he did 400 km, it was because the meeting had a useful objective," said the president. "Of course we talked about the war in Syria and its upcoming departure but there was no pressure", replies the former commercial incarcerated in the Paris region

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"We talked about religion, what was going on in the world," said Ali Hattay, another member of the sector, who was interviewed from his place of detention. In police custody, the latter had indicated that he had been "sensitized" by the speech of Mourad Farès praising the departure for Syria.

His name appears on the cards of Daesh recruits

The role of the accused, however, is not disputed in the logistics of the departure of the Strasbourg residents who scrupulously followed his recommendations: leaving in small groups, taking return tickets, booking a hotel ... 'They had contact with the smuggler who allowed them to cross the border. And it is his name that appears on their cards revealed by the “Daechleaks” as their entry point into the organization. "So he is a recruiter?" Insists the president to Ali Hattay. "A facilitator, tempers the witness. Even if it is obvious that, in my case, recourse was had to Mourad Farès. "

On the spot, the Strasbourg residents however had the unpleasant surprise of not being welcomed by the Savoyard. Hostile to the evolution taken by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, the ancestor of IS), Mourad Farès already had plans to emancipate and form a new group, which had complicated his situation in the area and therefore access to his foals.

"In fact everything was planned except that, sore Miloud Maalmi, another member of the sector who, like his comrades, had hardly appreciated this addiction to the program. We had to join him, and then we would advise. "But he also assures him:" I was not forced [...] Finally I understood that I had left knowingly. "