The four men are cautious. To escape surveillance by the intelligence services, they turn off their phones, put them on a bench and walk away. This April 4, 2019, in Chelles, in Seine-et-Marne, the quartet discusses the practical formalities of the attack which it plans to commit before the end of Ramadan. They will divide into two groups and will open fire on the police officers on duty in front of the Elysée Palace.
Each member is invited to find the necessary money to buy weapons. In the evening, they continue their conversation on a Telegram group. “We need a lot of ammunition to do dirty work, not just two chargers,” says Alexandre B., 39, the initiator of the project, to his accomplices. He still ignores her. But one of them, nicknamed “Abou Bakr”, is actually an agent who infiltrated this cell which will be dismantled a few days later.
Four years later, Alexandre B., Karim B., 42, and Mohamed C., 21, are tried, from Monday, until April 19, in Paris, before the Assize Court for minors specially composed, for association of terrorist criminals with a view to preparing crimes of attack on persons. Two other people, suspected of having helped them, appear alongside them, including one for “non-denunciation of a crime constituting an act of terrorism”. They face thirty years of imprisonment.
“Can you be armed on your side?” »
The case begins in February 2019. DGSI agents spot disturbing messages posted by an Internet user whose pseudonym is “Bill Bening”. A supporter of armed jihad, he shares Daesh propaganda videos on Telegram showing scenes of beheadings and throats. The anti-terrorist section of the Paris prosecutor’s office is opening a preliminary investigation.
Investigators are quick to identify the suspect: it is Alexandre B., a Parisian stadium keeper, originally from Guadeloupe. This man, converted to Islam in 2002, says he is looking for weapons to carry out an attack and thus “leave a trace of his passage”.
DGSI investigators are authorized to carry out an investigation under a pseudonym to contact the suspect. “Abou Mohamed” enters the scene. This cyber-patrolman manages to infiltrate a discussion group on Telegram and gain the trust of Alexandre B. The latter does not hide his desire to attack the police. “Can you be armed on your side?” “, he asks the other members of the group on February 19, 2019.
First target considered, the Aulnay-sous-Bois police station
“Abou Mohamed” cannot carry out physical infiltration. In order to obtain more information on this plan of attack, justice then appealed to Siat, the interministerial technical assistance service. Reporting to the central direction of the judicial police, it is responsible for preparing and carrying out sensitive infiltration operations.
It is a “specially trained and authorized” agent who is chosen to carry out this delicate mission, note the investigating judges in their order of indictment. His pseudonym: “Khalil”. The first agent, “Abou Mohamed”, begins by inviting him to the Telegram chat. For the other members, he will be the jihadist “Abou Bakr”.
On February 26, “Abou Bakr” meets Alexandre B. for the first time, who confirms to him that he wants to commit an attack “with other brothers”. Target ? Police officers, and more particularly CRS. The next day, the stadium keeper gives him an appointment at the Aulnay-sous-Bois police station, in Seine-Saint-Denis, to carry out scouting. “I don’t want them to sleep anymore, I want them to be stressed and wonder every time when we’re going to hit them,” says Alexandre B.
A 17-year-old emir
On March 27, a new meeting is organized at the Gare du Nord. Alexandre B. introduces Siat agent Karim B., 38, a radicalized father. Nicknamed “Samurai of Allah” on Telegram, he dreams of dying as a martyr in an attack that would be led by his emir, a certain “Abou Mujahid”.
The DGSI investigators very quickly identify this new protagonist: it is Mohamed C., a 17-year-old teenager already known to the justice system. He was arrested with an accomplice on February 8, 2017, in Germany, when they were trying to reach Syria to fight in the ranks of Daesh. The young man was sentenced in January 2019 for terrorist criminal association and placed in an educational center in Chelles.
Mohamed C. is in turn added to the Telegram group. The teenager brags and boasts of having deceived his educators by practicing taqiya to conceal his jihadist convictions. “I’m not lacking in motivation, if I want I’ll take action right away, but I’m waiting for us to be together to hit harder,” he assures his accomplices straight away. The undercover agent met him on April 3 in Chelles to discuss potential targets: a journalist from Charlie Hebdothe Chinese embassy, churches, policemen…
Abou Bakr finds him the next day, as we have seen, in the presence of the two other members of the group, Karim B. and Alexandre B. That day, Mohamed C. struggles to hide his impatience. “Brothers, my wish is that it be done before the end of Ramadan, that’s all, I can’t delay any longer. The young man even plans to kill his educator before taking action in the streets of Paris with the rest of the group. He also wants a video of allegiance to Daesh to be posted, and to film the attack with a GoPro camera.
“The project was to die as a martyr”
In the days that followed, the Siat agent offered to provide the group with weapons. They give him the money necessary for their purchase on April 19. And five days later, agent “Khalil” announces to them that he has acquired two Kalashnikovs. These weapons, which in reality are demilitarized, are, he says, in a hideout rue de Lancry, in the 10th arrondissement of the capital.
He gives them an appointment two days later in this apartment full of microphones and miniature cameras so that they can test them and practice handling them. But when they leave the building around 6:15 p.m. on April 24, 2019, Karim B. and Alexandre B. are arrested by DGSI agents who are waiting for them on the street. Mohamed C., who had not been able to join them, was arrested in Chelles after having tried to withdraw money in vain.
In police custody at the DGSI, the suspects quickly confess. “The project was to die as a martyr by being shot by the police”, clearly announces to investigators Mohamed C. “We wanted to carry out the attacks in the name of Daesh”, he specifies, assuring nevertheless that he would “never have had the courage to go all the way”. Alexandre B. also ended up acknowledging his involvement in the plan to attack the Élysée. “There is no better target, it is the very symbol of the state. »
Did the two agents push them to commit an attack? Mohamed C.’s lawyer, Me Marc Bailly, believes in any case “that the combined action of the cyberinfiltrator and the physically infiltrated agent certainly had a decisive influence on the project for which they are accused today. “. “The law authorizes provocation to evidence but not provocation to offence”, he explains to 20 minutes. Their role “will be at the heart of the debates”, believes the lawyer, adding that his client “is keen to speak, to explain himself and to understand what are the limits of these infiltration measures which are very little supervised by the law “.