The jihadist duo who targeted a meeting of Marine Le Pen in court

Five days before the first round of the presidential election, in the popular 3rd arrondissement of Marseille, it is the end of several weeks of tracking under high tension. On April 18, 2017, following extensive investigations coordinated with the Belgian and German police, the security forces have just arrested two Frenchmen, Clément Baur and Mahiédine Merabet, in an apartment, about to commit an attack which aimed in particular an imminent meeting of Marine Le Pen. This Thursday, the two men appear before the assizes for criminal terrorist association, alongside ten men suspected to varying degrees of having accompanied them in their terrorist project, in particular in the supply of weapons. 20 minutes back to this case.

What are the facts ?

On April 18, 2017, the General Directorate of Internal Security (DGSI) carried out a vast operation in an apartment on the small rue de Crimée, in the city center of Marseille. We are then five days away from the first round of the presidential election. The security services are on their toes. The apartment has been rented for a month by a 24-year-old young man, Clément Baur. He lives there with another 30-year-old man, Mahiédine Merabet, from the north of France.

Six days earlier, Mahiédine Merabet sent a video to one of his contacts showing dozens of ammunition, arranged on the apartment table, so as to write “the law of retaliation”, next to a machine gun. , an Islamic State flag and the front page of World of March 16, 2017 with a photo of the candidate François Fillon, followed by a montage of children victims of bombardments in Syria. But the recipient of this video is none other… than a cyberinfiltrator from the DGSI. The anti-terrorist services also know that this same Mahiédine Merabet has been looking for a contact since the beginning of the month to transmit to the EI a video of allegiance and claim.

In the apartment, the investigators discovered more than 3.5 kg of TATP, a homemade explosive popular with jihadists. A part is ready to use, another dries on shelves, 250 grams are already in a salt shaker with a wick to make a pomegranate. The search also seized a large arsenal: the Uzi submachine gun, three 7.65 mm caliber pistols, hundreds of ammunition and a bag of bolts. “There is little doubt that these bolts were going to be used in the making of a lethal bomb, the projection of multiple bolts following a TATP explosion could have devastating effects”, can we read in the commissioning order charge.

“The apartment in which the two men lived in the last fortnight before their arrest was “decorated” with photographs of dead or injured children and press articles dealing with the bombings in Syria, hung on the walls of the main room. “, Details the order of indictment.

What were the targets?

The day after this arrest, the National Front candidate for the presidential election Marine Le Pen held a rally in Marseille. However, the exploitation of digital media by the investigators reveals that the two accomplices carried out research on this event on April 11, after having also looked for other potential targets such as libertine clubs in Marseille, bars or even a kosher restaurant. of the Marseille city.

During his interrogation, Mahiédine Merabet explains that he considered making “a coup […] media” by detonating the homemade grenade “near the neighborhood where the meeting was taking place”. They would then have sent a letter of protest to a newspaper. “Certain objects found in the apartment suggest that the staging of the terrorist act was seriously considered, can we read in the indictment order. There is indeed a black mask of the Anonymous type and a Go-Pro which, in the context, inevitably makes think of a self-filmed terrorist operation. »

Who is Clement Baur?

When Clément Baur is arrested by the police, for his family, it’s the end of a mystery. The 23-year-old young man has indeed been missing since January 2015. Living in the north of France, he was to join his mother, who lives in Nice. He never went there. He is seen for the last time in Marseille, near the Saint-Charles station.

For two years, no trace, except a passage to the Lille-Sequedin prison for four months for possession of false documents, under a false identity, Ismaïl Djabrailov. The teenager was first a practicing Catholic, even taking part in World Youth Days before converting “without being able to give the reasons”, underlines the indictment order.

According to a psychiatric expert commissioned during the investigation, “Clement Baur’s relationship to religion seems to have been initiated in preadolescence in a subject in family suffering, believing that he had found in the Koran answers to his intimate questions, to his malaise and his existential quest, concluding in a religious radicalization, since his relationship to religion remains literal, without any critical distancing or metaphorical interpretation”. Still according to another expert psychologist, “France crystallizes in him aggressive impulses, sublimated by the jihadist ideal”. “He seems well anchored in a radical Islam from which he does not deviate”, is it written in the indictment order.

Passionate about foreign languages, Clément Baur learns Arabic and Russian from an early age and self-taught, to the point of passing himself off as a Chechen to those close to him, including his wives. This passion indeed serves him in his “ability to take on different identities to live in hiding”, and this from the age of 18. Over the course of the investigations, the investigators discover that Clément Baur is known by four other identities, three of which are completely false.

The investigators are finally convinced that during his winding journey, Clément Baur frequented the terrorist cell of Verviers in Belgium, that of Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the operational head of the November 13 commandos, and that he was in contact in Germany with Anis Amri, the perpetrator of the Berlin Christmas market truck attack in 2016.

Who is Mahiedine Merabet?

Aged 30 at the time of the events, Mahiédine Merabet knew Clément Baur in prison. The two men shared the same cell from February 19 to April 2, 2015 at Lille-Sequedin prison. Clément Baur was sentenced for possession of false documents. For his part, Mahiédine Merabet has a heavy criminal record, with, from his minority, no less than twelve convictions for acts ranging from aggravated theft to kidnapping or kidnapping. Both, in detention, began to talk a lot about religion, according to the supervisors stationed at Sequedin at the time, who then asked to be separated. In front of the investigators, Mahiédine Merabet affirms that Clément Baur is “the first person to have put him in the bath” of radical Islam.

Once released from prison, the two men remain in contact through social networks. “It is remarkable that Mahiédine Merabet and Clément Baur went underground in December 2016, whereas when they choose this option, they are absolutely not wanted for any crime, can we read in the indictment order. The preparation of a serious terrorist act seems to be the only rational explanation for this clandestine flight. Neither Clément Baur’s lawyers nor Mahiédine Merabet’s lawyers wanted to comment on the case before the trial, the verdict of which is expected on February 3.

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