Trial of the attack in Trèbes: heavy sentences despite the absence of the attacker?

This Friday, February 23, the Paris Assize Court must deliver its verdict in the trial of the Carcassonne and Trèbes attacks. Seven relatives of the attacker killed during the GIGN assault are on trial. Up to eleven years of criminal imprisonment were requested by the anti-terrorism prosecution.

Home straight for the trial of the Carcassonne and Trèbes attacks. While the defense arguments ended on Thursday February 22, 2024, the court is expected to deliver its verdict this Friday February 23. Six years after the assassination of four people, including gendarme Arnaud Beltrame, sentences of up to eleven years of criminal imprisonment were requested against seven relatives of the terrorist, Radouane Lakdim, killed during the assault on law enforcement, according to the L’Indépendant website. The investigation having shown that the attacker had acted alone, none of them is being tried for “complicity”. The general advocates, Alexa Dubourg and Aurélie Valente, representatives of the national anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office, recalled that the objective is not to place the weight of the absence of Radouane Lakdim on the accused, but to sanction them “to the right extent”. of what they did.”

During the penultimate day of the hearing, attention was mainly focused on the defense of Marine Pequignot, the girlfriend of Radouane Lakdim, who was 18 years old at the time of the facts. She is being tried for “terrorist criminal conspiracy” for having knowledge of the possession of weapons at the terrorist’s home and having been “informed of his plans to attack disbelievers in general”, according to the order of indictment. His case is subject to the greater sentence requested by the attorney generals. “You have a new woman in front of you who has chosen life,” her lawyer Me Boret told the court to defend the woman who adhered to the ideology of the Islamic State at 16 years old. “There are 28 reports on her that say ‘not the slightest persistence of radicalization’ in her, 792 hours of monitoring since she left prison,” he said.

The day before, the lawyers of Baghdad Haddaoui, accused of the related offense of non-denunciation of a terrorist crime, called for the acquittal of their client who was “upset” and “shocked” when he learned that the attack had been carried out by his friend Radouane Lakdim. “He didn’t understand how he got there, if he had known something, he would have talked about it,” they insisted on the stand. Same request from the defense of Ahmed Arfaoui, the ex-brother-in-law of Radouane Lakdim, prosecuted for terrorist criminal association. The lawyer of Sofian Boudebbouza, also accused of terrorist criminal association, for her part demanded a reclassification as “direct provocation of an act of terrorism committed by means of an online public communication service, in a state of legal recidivism”.