At the specially constituted assize court,
Same courtroom, same accused, same questions. An air of déjà vu floats this Tuesday at the specially constituted criminal court. This is, in fact, not the first time that Mohamed Lamine Aberouz has had to tell his story to magistrates curious to understand how, as a teenager, he fell into radicalization. The first time was in October 2019. The young man, who was appearing for failure to report a terrorist crime, then occupied the box alongside six other people, tried for a failed attack near Notre-Dame in 2016. He had followed the same exercise during the appeal trial in June 2021. In this case, he was sentenced to five years in prison.
And here he is again, two years later, answering, in almost the same way, the same questions. Except that this time, he is being tried for “complicity in the assassination of a person holding public authority” in relation to a terrorist enterprise and faces life imprisonment. He is accused of having helped Larossi Abballa to kill a couple of police officers in their home in Magnanville (Yvelines) in June 2016.
Coming from a practicing Muslim family, Mohamed Lamine Aberouz definitively took the turn towards religion when he was 17 years old. He had just been expelled from his high school, after a fight “which was not consummated”. “There were no exchanges of blows. But I recognize that I had provoked this person,” specifies the accused, gray t-shirt, jogging pants, hair tied in a ponytail, long beard and black glasses. At the time, the teenager from Mureaux was educated in this “fairly strict” establishment in Poissy, in Yvelines. “It was another France, there were almost only French people. »
“I consider myself a Muslim of Arab origin”
President Christophe Petiteau is surprised. “But you are French too. » “It all depends on what you hear,” replies the accused. Before adding: “My current point of view is that being French is ethnic. An ethnic Frenchman who is converted is a Frenchman, he will remain a Frenchman. I consider myself an Arab. » “It’s not a nationality,” the magistrate retorts. The accused continues. “Administratively, I am French and Moroccan. But I consider myself a Muslim of Arab origin. »
Out of school, the teenager discovered “spirituality” in 2009. An aunt who lives in Mauritania suggested that he join her in this African country in order to perfect his knowledge of Arabic and religion. He finds himself in a sort of traditional school “right in the desert, without running water, without electricity”, with “dromedaries, cows”. “I liked seeing people from another background,” he says. This period was “beneficial” because he was able to “dedicate himself to religion”, learn a few surahs. He finds “peace and tranquility” in his practice.
“The prophet was not born in Finistère”
He planned to stay there for two years. Finally, he returned to France seven months later. The reason ? His older brother was arrested in Pakistan while trying to join an Al-Qaeda training camp. The home of his parents, who were relieved to learn that their son Charaf-Din was alive, was searched. His mother, who was “hugely impacted” by this affair, asked Mohamed Lamine to return. He does so. But he always kept “in the back of his mind the idea of going back” to Mauritania. “The only time I was happy in my life was when I was there. »
Back in France, Mohamed Lamine Aberouz works as a temporary worker. He encounters “difficulties” in finding a job compatible with “Islam, its values, its principles”. For example, if he fulfills a mission as a storekeeper, he cannot “carry alcohol or pork to the shelves”. He also needs to pray several times a day “within the time defined” in the Quran, which some employers do not accept. Islam, he laments, “is not absolutely compatible with France, it is no surprise the prophet was not born in Finistère. »
“All Islamic orthodoxy is seen as evil”
“All Islamic orthodoxy is seen as evil in France,” he continues. Whoever agrees to live in this country and renounce the principles of his religion, is free. » The accused plans to “live in an Islamic country” in which he could “feel fulfilled”, such as Mauritania or Egypt. But for the moment, he does not have enough money to do so and he prefers to stay with his mother “who is elderly”.
The court then comes to the particular sentimental life of the accused. As a teenager, his “shyness” prevented him from approaching girls. Since his “spiritual awakening”, Mohamed Lamine Aberouz has not considered engaging in a relationship, even epistolary, if it does not lead to a quick marriage. There was, for a time, talk of him marrying Sarah Hervouet, a young woman he met through Larossi Abballa. She was convicted of stabbing a DGSI agent in September 2016, after an attempted gas canister attack near Notre-Dame de Paris. In 2021, he married Janna C. religiously, but he only met her for the first time on Monday, when she was brought to testify on the stand.
“She became aware of the mistakes”
It must be said that the young woman, who was sentenced to seven years in prison for a planned attack in July 2016, was only released from detention on September 14. President Petiteau “notes that these two women, with whom you have maintained longer contact, have both been convicted of terrorism cases.” Mohamed Lamine Aberouz responds that when he started talking with Sarah Hervouet, the latter assured him that she was not “the subject of legal proceedings” and that she no longer wanted to go to Syria. His religious wife began to write to him while he was detained, “totally isolated”, “far” from his family. She gives him a lot of “support”.
The day before, the testimony of Janna C. disturbed the specially composed assize court. The young woman, veiled from head to toe in a green jilbab, reassured no one when she spoke of her “evolution”. In prison, “she became aware of her errors,” assures the accused. She is disengaged and will not seek to do something that would cost her prosecution or legal trouble.”