The Paris Special Assize Court on appeal this Tuesday condemned French jihadist Tyler Vilus to life imprisonment, against 30 years at first instance, for crimes committed between 2013 and 2015 in Syria with Daesh.
The court attached this sentence to a safety period of 22 years, considering that, the accused denying part of the charges against him, “the risk of repetition remains major”.
A filmed killing
At the same time fighter, squad leader, online proselyte, recruiter and member of the Daesh police, this 31-year-old “integral jihadist” was arrested at Istanbul airport in the summer of 2015 on his return to commit an attack.
The court notably found him guilty of having participated in the spring of 2015 in the main street of Shaddadi (eastern Syria) in the public execution of two prisoners, blindfolded and orange jumpsuits. A killing filmed and broadcast in a Daesh propaganda video. Standing in the glass box, the accused listened to the verdict with his head down in a room occupied by an impressive deployment of heavily equipped gendarmes.
The Assize Court immersed in Syrian hell
During the eight days of hearings on the Île de la Cité, the special assize court immersed itself in the Syrian hell, between fratricidal struggles opposing the various jihadist factions, carnage of rare cruelty and ghosts of ‘perpetrators of attacks in Europe.
In an echo of the titanic trial of the attacks of November 13, perpetrated by some relatives of Tyler Vilus and tried at the same time a few rooms away, it is the entire microcosm of French-speaking jihadists in Syria that has been x-rayed in the courtroom. A small world populated by the dead, of which the accused is one of the last survivors.