An anti-terrorism investigating judge on Friday ordered a trial for a jihadist duo accused of a large-scale attack project, potentially against a Marine Le Pen meeting a few days before the 2017 presidential election, according to a judicial source. At the end of vast investigations, coordinated with the Belgian and German police, the French Clément Baur and Mahiedine Merabet, 28 and 34 years old today, must appear before the assizes for criminal “terrorist association”.
At their side will appear ten men suspected to varying degrees of having accompanied them in their terrorist project, without necessarily knowing the precise objective which was theirs, but by providing transport, cache, weapons or ammunition.
A salt shaker transformed into a pomegranate
On Tuesday, April 18, 2017, Clément Baur and Mahiedine Merabet were arrested in Marseille by the General Directorate of Internal Security (DGSI), five days before the first round of the presidential election. In their apartment, the investigators discovered “more than 3.5 kg of TATP”, a homemade explosive popular with jihadists. One part is ready to use, another dries on shelves, 250 grams are already in a salt shaker with a wick to form a pomegranate.
According to the indictment order of July 23 consulted by AFP, several weapons and ammunition are also seized, but also digital media, including in particular a photograph of a staging: a tablet displays a video of the group Islamic State (IS) showing injured children, near newspaper The world with François Fillon in the front page, weapons, and dozens of ammunition arranged so as to write “the law of retaliation”.
During the investigation, Mahiedine Merabet disputes any plan for an attack but admits, however, that he considered “a little bang” with the TATP salt shaker near the Marine Le Pen meeting, scheduled for the next day. Before giving it up on his own, he assures us. Clément Baur admits having mentioned a murderous project with his accomplice but claims to have changed his mind, assuring that he only seriously considered “material damage” on an “institutional target”, in retaliation for the strikes in Syria.
“We are thinking with Clément Baur to appeal this referral order,” said his lawyers, Me Charlotte Cesari and Jérôme Susini. Me David Apelbaum and Romain Ruiz, lawyers for Mahiedine Merabet, “reserve their statements for the court”.