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Missed Villejuif attack: Sid-Ahmed Ghlam, an imperturbable jihadist in front of his judges

2020-10-07T19:57:30.772Z


Suspected of having wanted to commit an attack in a church and of having killed Aurélie Châtelain in April 2015, the accused proceeded without emotion


A long linear slide, almost natural, towards armed jihad.

Judged since the beginning of the week by the special Assize Court of Paris, Sid-Ahmed Ghlam told this Wednesday without particular emotion his trajectory.

That of a child from Tiaret near Oran (Algeria), brought up in a home without history, radicalized with disarming ease and encouraged without much effort to commit carnage in France, the host country of his family.

Arrested on April 19, 2015 in Villejuif (Val-de-Marne) in possession of a substantial arsenal, this 29-year-old Algerian is suspected of having wanted to commit an attack in a church - a project that was ultimately aborted in troubled circumstances.

He is also accused of having killed Aurélie Châtelain, a 32-year-old fitness teacher, which he denies.

During this first interrogation, the accused recognized his fatal project with a certain detachment, in a surprisingly disembodied speech.

In a flat voice, the accused unfolds his course without pitfalls.

A “serene and calm” childhood with a father who was a car dealer and a stay-at-home mother, a two-stage installation in St-Dizier (Haute-Marne) in France at the end of childhood, a scientific baccalaureate graduated in Algeria with honors, then enrolled in a computer engineering school in Paris.

The only downside to this picture: the accidental death of his older brother in 2011. “Sid-Ahmed has become a moral support for the family,” says his little sister, referring to this traumatic episode.

Summer 2014, the turning point

In 2013, for financial reasons, he said, he left his school to enroll in college in Reims (Marne) and thus be closer to his parents.

A failure.

The following year, he enrolled at the Sorbonne but tweaked his grades in the process.

Disciplinary Board.

The machine has jammed.

Sid-Ahmed Ghlam interrupts his studies to invest in another field, that of radical Islam.

To hear him, the turning point would have occurred in the summer of 2014, during a stay in Algeria.

“I was taking religion classes at the mosque.

I have met other people who have influenced me, he says, gripping the microphone.

After there was the enlistment, we only talked about the ideology of the Islamic State.

The Advocate General questions this version.

According to a witness heard in Algeria, Sid-Ahmed Ghlam was at the time already "extremely fanatic" and only had jihad in his mouth.

"Under torture one can say anything", evacuates the accused.

In spring 2014, adds the general counsel, her little sister, then schooled in CM2, is the subject of a report because she defends jihad.

Still, with the accused, seduction operates quickly.

The young man drinks from sermon videos and propaganda.

"I was all day in front of the Islamic State", he says, speaking of a "spiral of radicalization".

In October 2014, with his Algerian childhood friends, he made his first trip to Turkey.

“The goal was to go to Syria,” he admits without batting an eyelid.

There, in Istanbul, in a “reception house”, he meets for the first time the one who calls himself “Abou Mouthana”.

"I fell into a trap"

“He noted that my passport had been issued in France.

My two friends went to Syria but I stayed in Istanbul.

He told me he needed me in France.

I accept it.

There was nothing specified at that time, ”he recalls.

This “Abu Mouthana” is none other than Abdelnasser Benyoucef, a jihad veteran suspected of having had a preeminent role in the cell of Daesh's external operations.

His name also appeared late in the dossier of the January 2015 attacks, the trial of which is taking place in parallel.

Sid-Ahmed Ghlam leaves this first trip with 3,000 euros in his pocket and with instructions, among other things, to acquire a camera.

“Why”, asks President Xaviere Simeoni.

" I do not know at all.

I'm not asking a question, ”replied the accused, still just as imperturbable.

"But do you have an idea in mind?

», Continues the judge.

“No, frankly.

I took it for a test.

"

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The test is clearly conclusive since Sid-Ahmed Ghlam maintains contact with his interlocutors.

And made a second stay in February 2015. “We're just after the Charlie Hebdo attacks, doesn't that cool you down?

», Asks the president.

“Honestly, I had no opinion.

My goal was to go to Syria, ”recites the young man.

This time, it is explicitly a question of committing an attack in France.

“Abou Mouthana” evokes the RER station in Villepinte (Seine-Saint-Denis), the city where he comes from.

The final choice will be a church.

Placed in pre-trial detention for five and a half years, Sid-Ahmed Ghlam ensures that he has gradually de-radicalized.

“I fell into a trap, he pleads.

They made me believe that evil was good and that the terrorists were not them, not us, but the others, the bombers.

The accused faces life imprisonment.

Source: leparis

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