How delicate it seemed to bear, the memory of the gendarmerie colonel Arnaud Beltrame, for his former comrades in arms who came to testify before the special assize court of Paris. How, when serving an institution whose rules cannot be discussed and where protocol saves lives, can you find the right words to honor the one who gave his own while contravening all intervention procedures?
On the second day of the trial for the attacks in Trèbes and Carcassonne (Aude), Tuesday January 23, three former colleagues of Arnaud Beltrame recounted the operation during which the colonel lost his life. Each in their own way, they strove to remain faithful to military discipline without tarnishing the image of the hero, sketching, with restraint and unsaid words, the ambivalence of a sacrifice which had a profound impact on the gendarmerie.
This March 23, 2018, around 10:50 a.m., Radouane Lakdim, a radicalized delinquent, has just locked himself with a hostage, a cashier, in the safe room of the Super U in Trèbes, after having killed three people.
Major Anthony Garcia, commander of the Carcassonne gendarmerie surveillance and intervention platoon (PSIG), was one of the first responders to arrive on site. He quickly decides to enter the store with his men in order to evacuate the civilians and ” to stare “ the terrorist.
“I tell him you shouldn’t do that.”
He informs Colonel Beltrame, who has just joined them. More senior than him, Arnaud Beltrame then led anti-terrorist training throughout the department and “had also set up a hostage-taking exercise in a store in 2017”, remembers the major. As the colonel was not equipped with a helmet or a long gun, Anthony Garcia gave him a radio so that he could keep them informed of any movements of the terrorist.
The column has already progressed between the shelves when the major notices that Arnaud Beltrame has followed them: “I ask him to stay behind cover and not intervene. » The police continued their advance and evacuated the victims. “We then began a discussion with the hostage taker. And at this moment, Colonel Beltrame takes the hand, he offers the terrorist to talk to the cashier. I tell him that he shouldn’t do that, he comes forward anyway, puts down his weapon and locks himself in the safe room.
– Did you ask him not to make this exchange? insists the president.
– The fact of exchanging is not provided for by the procedure. The protocol says to evacuate the victims, then fix the terrorist in such a way as to cut off his freedom of movement. »
You have 55% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.