On the fourth day of the trial for the Trèbes and Carcassonne attacks, this Friday, January 26, the court broadcast the surreal audio recording of the hostage-taking of Julie L. by Radouane Lakdim.
The music from the supermarket resonates, insistent, in the courtroom. It is regularly interspersed with advertising jingles, sometimes “Allah Akbar” shouted very loudly, during an hour of broadcast of a surreal audio recording during the Trèbes attack in 2018.
“Hello ma’am, my name is Julie, and I am currently, uh, being held hostage by an armed gentleman.” It is 10:42 a.m. on March 23, 2018 at the start of this call to the gendarmes, from the super U in Trèbes where Radouane Lakdim, a 25-year-old radicalized petty criminal, has just killed the head butcher and a customer of the store at point blank range.
“That day, I was on duty at reception,” Julie L., now 45 years old, recalled Friday before the Paris Special Assize Court. “I heard a first snap that I took for a pallet falling to the ground. At the second snap, I looked up, I saw an arm in the air, a shot.”
“Is he threatening you there?”
She hides in the office behind the reception stand, hears Radouane Lakdim’s footsteps approaching, then his voice. “Come on, it’s okay, I have my hostage. Get out of there, I won’t hurt you. Come on, we’ll call the cops.” The rest is heard on the recording of the call at 17. The gendarme almost seems more panicked than Julie L., whose composure throughout the audio is impressive.
– “He has a gun to your head, is he threatening you there?”
– “Uh a pistol, with a knife, and two grenades,” replies Julie L..
– “Is this gentleman next to you?”
– “The gentleman says he is an ISIS soldier.”
Radouane Lakdim can’t stand it any longer and starts shouting into the receiver: “You are bombing my brothers in Mali, Syria, Iraq… we have to pay the consequences.”
What follows is a rare dive into the closed session between a hostage and “a little idiot transformed into a monster”, as Julie L. will describe it on the stand. “He started talking, talking a lot, justifying his action,” remembers the ex-hostage. On the audio tape we hear an improbable mix of ISIS propaganda delivered at lightning speed, supermarket music, promotional announcements and prayers sung by the attacker.
“On ? “
“Through the bay window, we could see the flashing lights and the caps of the police. He was happy with himself,” remembers Julie L. The gendarmes entered the store from afar. Radouane Lakdim sees them, slips behind her, points her pistol at her temple, her knife at her ribs, she shows the court. “I didn’t want to kill her but now I’m killing her straight away,” Radouane Lakdim threatens, shouting in a nervous voice.
Lieutenant-Colonel Arnaud Beltrame begins to negotiate with him. In the courtroom, his voice is distant at first, then clearer as he moves toward the hostage, the assailant and the recording phone.
– “The little lady has nothing to do with it, we’re making an exchange,” he repeats.
– “You want me to kill you instead?”
– “Yes I prefer”.
“Seriously?”, replies Radouane Lakdim, who seems taken aback. “Are you sure? Are you ready to die for France?”
For around ten minutes, Arnaud Beltrame repeats his request in a calm tone, promising that he will “not act like a cowboy”, that he will help him get his messages across. “I have a grenade”, “I am ready to die tock-tac-tac”, warns Radouane Lakdim, who seems very tense.
“Be careful, you’re shaking,” whispers Julie L., who still has a gun pointed at her head. Arnaud Beltrame finally enters the office. Julie L. understands that she can leave even if no one says anything.
“I’ll go slowly, okay?”, we hear him suggest. She goes out. Radouane Lakdim will be killed in the assault, after fatally wounding the gendarme in the throat with a knife. “How did it go between you and Arnaud Beltrame?” the president asks the ex-hostage.
“He didn’t speak to me. I was looking for a sign from him but he gave me absolutely none,” replies Julie L. “He acted as if I was already no longer there.”