They will have to explain themselves before the specially composed juvenile court during a trial which could be held in 2024. Six men born between 1983 and 2003 are accused of having prepared attacks in a butcher’s shop in Brest. Several targets were reportedly considered for these violent actions, including the Brest naval base, Chinese New Year celebrations in France, a synagogue and football matches.
The investigation began in September 2019 around the situation of Mohamad D., a Palestinian born in 1985 in Homs in Syria. Arriving in France at the end of 2015 as a refugee, in 2019 he regularly visited the butcher-grocery store “Chez Wahid” in Brest. That year, Wahid B., the manager of the store, was convicted of advocating terrorism for having mimed shooting with an automatic weapon as a police patrol passed by after the attacks of November 13, 2015.
The butcher’s sound system led to arrests
According to the indictment order, his business was suspected of hosting meetings of the local “radical Islamist movement”. In November 2019, the establishment was sounded, allowing the arrest in January 2020 of seven individuals, including Mohamad D. and Wahid B.
At the end of three and a half years of investigation, two anti-terrorism judges ordered on July 28 the referral to court of six of them for criminal terrorist association and a dismissal of the case for the seventh. According to a source close to the case, a cassation appeal is however underway.