On the large screen of the courtroom of the special assize court appear diagrams, covered with arrows, numbers and pictograms: houses, telephones - landlines and mobiles.
Names, too: those of the Kouachi brothers, authors of the killing at Charlie Hebdo, of Amedy Coulibaly, the hostage taker of the Hyper Cacher and assassin of Clarissa Jean-Philippe and, above all, those of several of the fourteen accused on trial since September 2 in Paris for providing logistical support to these terrorist attacks.
After three weeks devoted to the hearing of the civil parties, the trial of the attacks of January 2015 entered fully this Monday, September 28 in the examination of the charges against the accused.
All deny having knowledge of the trio's deadly projects, and today owe their presence in the box - three are on the run - essentially to two lines of investigation: the exploitation of DNA traces and that of telephony.
Some 37 million pieces of data analyzed
And it takes that, this sort of visual memo, to understand the work of Benedictines accomplished by investigators from the telephone lines attributed to the three terrorists.
One dizzying figure alone sums up the magnitude of the task: 37 million pieces of data analyzed, from the terminals, chips and boxes used.
What strikes first is the extreme caution of the terrorists, whose official lines reveal almost nothing, if not the “fusional relationship” of the Kouachi, Saïd and Chérif brothers.
“They called each other at least once a day,” reveals an investigator.
For the rest, they used lines subscribed under assumed names: no less than seventeen for Amedy Coulibaly from September 2014, including five for the week of the attacks alone.
And it took some imprudence on the part of the latter so that the criminal brigade, from its "fadettes" (its telephone records), could disentangle the web of its relations: Ali Riza Polat, Nezar Mickaël Pastor Alwatik, Amar Ramdani, Willy Prévost… "Usual correspondents who become exclusive correspondents between January 1 and 7
(Editor's note: date of the attack on Charlie Hebdo)
", underlines the same investigator, who recites, often in his head, each of the numbers analyzed.
The demarcation of the telephones also suggests meetings between them and Coulibaly, during this same period.
But with the Kouachi, there are only very rare telephone contacts, and only one meeting, on the night of January 6 to 7 between Chérif and Coulibaly.
"A real mystery that we have not solved"
The rest of the investigation also shows how much Chérif and Saïd Kouachi locked their action, leaving almost no trace behind them.
The origin of their weapons - carrying a DNA still unknown to this day - has not been established with certainty.
Conversely, for Amedy Coulibaly, the “conspiratorial apartment” rented in Gentilly (Val-de-Marne) revealed the presence of a veritable arsenal from the former Yugoslavia.
Nezar Mickaël Pastor Alwatik's DNA was found on a weapon.
That of Willy Prévost was highlighted in the vehicle that was used for the attack on the Hyper Cacher.
At the helm, the commander of the criminal brigade who testifies in turn, however, recognizes the limits of this extraordinary investigation.
"We have very few elements that allow us to say what happened in this apartment between January 7 and 9
(Editor's note: between the attack on Charlie Hebdo and that of the Hyper Cacher)
" , he agrees, wondering about the possible presence of an accomplice in Gentilly.
Because it is also there that was shot, in several times, the video of Coulibaly's claim, the editing of which at least was provided by a third party.
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Other questions still await answers: who dropped off Coulibaly's rental car on the evening of January 6?
Who sent the one that will be used to take him to the Hyper Cacher?
“It's a real mystery that we haven't solved.
There are also the many weapons left by Coulibaly in Gentilly, but also in the trunk of the car, which also contained three bulletproof vests.
For lack of proof, it is therefore a personal conviction that the investigator delivers: "Amedy Coulibaly was probably not the only one to take action," he believes.
