The attacker confirms his allegiance to Daesh but denies having wanted to kill



Judged since Monday by the Special Assize Court of Paris for “terrorist assassination attempt” and “criminal terrorist association”, the assailant of the Carrousel du Louvre admitted having pledged allegiance to Daesh before his passage to the act. Abdalla El Hamahmi, who attacked soldiers with a machete on February 3, 2017, was questioned at length about the reasons that led him to attack these soldiers.

That morning, in the shopping arcade of the famous museum, this Egyptian father, then aged 29, rushes, armed with two machetes, towards a Sentinel device patrol, shouting “Allah Akbar” (“God is the largest ”). During the interrogations which follow his arrest, the assailant explains that he initially wanted to ransack works of the Louvre in order to alert “the Western world” to the children who die “every day” in the war in Syria.

“I wanted to break the statue of the Venus de Milo”

He presented himself initially as a supporter of Daesh before going back on his remarks, affirming to have acted alone and evoking a “personal project”. Asked Tuesday on this point, he returned to this version, acknowledging having wanted to join – in vain – the Daesh caliphate in Syria and failing to have succeeded, having wished to “do something” in France because of “the policy pursued. in Syria ”by Paris. He also admitted to having made allegiance to the jihadist organization, shortly before his act, in a video, mentioned in a note from the DGSE and whose authenticity he had previously disputed. Its attack was never claimed by Daesh, however.

“I wanted to break the statue of the Venus de Milo” and destroy “two paintings by Leonardo da Vinci as well as a painting by a very famous painter whose name I have forgotten”, he assured in Arabic, via an interpreter, from the box of the accused. “I wanted exclusively to harm property but I never wanted to harm any human being,” he insisted, assuring that he had only bought and used the two machetes for a “defensive” objective in order to be able to in particular to clear a path to the works. “I wanted to commit an action that would have a huge impact by destroying paintings so famous and so dear, so precious. (…) It was my goal for me the destruction was going to have a resounding global impact ”.

“It was not a declaration of war”

But the president of the court, Laurent Raviot, multiplies the questions: why, if the objective was to attack works, not to be interrupted by falling on the soldiers and not to have turned around? “At this precise moment, I had no more room for reflection, I had to go, I had the impression that I was like a robot, remote-controlled I walked without thinking”, answers the accused whose beard provided protrudes from his anti-Covid protective mask.

As for the cry “Allah Akbar” launched several times during the attack during which a soldier was wounded in the scalp and the attacker seriously wounded by retaliatory fire, “it was not a declaration of war” , he argues. “It has an extremely great meaning for Muslims, it means that God is greater than anything,” he adds. “When I saw the soldiers, I was surprised I did not expect them to be there and I said to myself that I was perhaps living the last 10, 15 seconds of my life, I was already dead, I knew they were going to shoot me and that’s what happened ”. The trial is scheduled to continue until Thursday.



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