Like 2021, the year 2022 will be marked by several large-scale terrorist trials: the continuation of that of the attacks of November 13, that of the assassination of Father Hamel or the attack on the promenade des Anglais, in Nice in 2016. In parallel, many criminal trials are particularly expected, including that of Nordahl Lelandais, which will open in Grenoble at the end of the month. 20 minutes provides an overview.
Trial of the attacks of November 13, continuation and end …
The resumption of the trial of the attacks of November 13, 2015, which opened last September and whose verdict is expected at the end of May, is surrounded by many questions. Starting with its recovery date. Salah Abdeslam having tested positive for Covid-19, the resumption, scheduled for Tuesday, January 4, will likely be postponed. Another question: Will Salah Abdeslam accept to answer the questions of the court? If the first part of the trial was marked by the moving testimonies of more than 400 civil parties, this beginning of the year will be devoted to the interrogations of the accused. However, throughout the month of December, the only survivor of the commandos, as well as Osama Krayem, another accused, refused to appear.
January 31: The trial of Nordahl Lelandais for the murder of little Maëlys
This is probably one of the most high profile cases of recent years. Nordahl Lelandais will appear from January 31 and for two weeks before the Grenoble Assize Court for the murder of Maëlys. The 8-year-old girl was kidnapped and then killed at the end of August 2017 during a wedding in Pont-de-Beauvoisin (Isère). After denying for a long time, the former dog handler finally acknowledged his involvement, while assuring that it was an accident. Nordahl Lelandais, already sentenced last year to 20 years in prison for the murder of Corporal Arthur Noyer, will also be tried for suspicion of sexual assault on two cousins and for possession of child pornography images.
February 14: The assassination of Father Jacques Hamel in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray
On January 26, 2016, less than two weeks after the Nice attack, two radicalized young people, Adel Kermiche and Abdel-Malik Petitjean, burst into the small church of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, near Rouen, and slaughter the Father Jacques Hamel, aged 85, before seriously injuring a parishioner also in his eighties. If the two attackers were shot dead by the police, four people are sent back to the assizes: the propagandist Rachid Kassim, the alleged instigator of the attack, who will be tried by default for “complicity in the assassination”, and three men from the entourage of jihadists for “criminal terrorist association”.
February 28: Trial of dentist accused of mutilating hundreds of patients
They promised them “a beautiful smile”. The surgeon-dentist Lionel Guedj and his father, also in the profession, will be tried before the Marseille Criminal Court for willful violence resulting in mutilation or permanent disability, but also fraud and forgery and use of forgery. On the benches of the civil parties, more than 400 former patients. Dentists are suspected of having invented pathologies with an often penniless patient, whom they have treated in the assembly line in disregard of the precautions that such acts require. Consequence: many of them have suffered serious consequences. The trial is scheduled to last six weeks.
March 29: The assassination of Narumi
The affair was as much judicial as diplomatic. Nicolas Zepada, a Chilean national, will be tried before the Assize Court of Besançon, suspected of the murder of his former girlfriend, Narumi Kurosaki. This Japanese woman who came to study in France disappeared in December 2016 without her body ever being found. Quickly, the investigations were directed towards his ex-companion, come to France to “explain himself” after their rupture. Returned almost immediately to Chile, he was subject to extradition proceedings. He has never ceased to deny.
April 25: The Brétigny-sur-Orge rail disaster trial
Nine years after the derailment of the Paris-Limoges train at Brétigny-sur-Orge (Essonne) station, the SNCF, SNCF-Réseau and a railway worker are tried for eight weeks for homicides and unintentional injuries before the Criminal Court of Evry. The investigations have, in fact, made it possible to affirm that the derailment is linked to poor maintenance of the rails. The tragedy left seven dead and thirty injured.
June 10: The rapist of the Sambre in front of the assizes
This is the epilogue of a vast “cold case”. From June 10, Dino Scala will be tried for three weeks for fifty rapes and sexual assaults committed for nearly 30 years between France and Belgium. This fifty-year-old mechanic with a clean criminal record, a father apparently without history, is suspected of having attacked women in a well-established mode of operation: he attacked them in the early morning, gloved hands and face covered. Confused by video surveillance during his last assault, he admitted the facts during the investigation.
September 5: Trial of the Nice attack
On July 14, 2016, around 10:30 p.m., Mohamed Lahouaij Bouhlel, a Tunisian national, drove a truck into the crowd gathered on the Promenade des Anglais to attend the fireworks display. The terrorist was shot dead by the police after having traveled nearly 2 kilometers, mowing dozens of people in his path, including many children. Results: 86 dead and more than 400 injured. If eight people were returned to the assizes, only three will be tried for a terrorist offense, “participation in a criminal terrorist association”, suspected of having helped him in his preparations while knowing his radicalization. The other five are being prosecuted for helping him while ignoring his adherence to a jihadist ideology.
October 10: Trial of the attacks in Brussels (Belgium)
It is difficult not to mention this trial, both the facts and the actors are linked to the attacks of November 13 in Paris. Ten men, including Salah Abdeslam and Mohamed Abrini, are on trial for their participation in the suicide attacks at Zaventem airport and the Brussels metro on March 22, 2016. 32 people died and 340 were injured.