The suspects, six men and a woman aged 22 to 33, are not being prosecuted for complicity but for having favored the act of the assailant, a radicalized common law offender killed on the day of the events during a an assault by the GIGN.
In an indictment signed on Wednesday and consulted by AFP, the magistrates go further than the requisitions of the national anti-terrorism prosecution (Pnat) and order that five of the suspects be tried for “criminal terrorist criminal association”.
Among those accused are the assailant’s girlfriend and closest friend, Marine Pequignot, 22, and Samir Manaa, 27, as well as Sofian Boudebbouza, now 24. Already convicted when he was a minor for having planned to go to the Iraqi-Syrian zone in 2017, the latter is accused of having provided intellectual support to Radouane Lakdim.
Alongside them, two other men, Reda El Yaakoubi, 32, and Ahmed Arfaoui, 27, will appear for the same criminal qualification, while the Pnat had only held offenses against them.
One of the two, the author’s brother-in-law, had cleaned the Lakdim’s family home, taking a bulky bag with him, before a search by the police.
Two other suspects will be tried for related offenses, in particular the possession of weapons.
All claimed to ignore the criminal project of Radouane Lakdim, 25 years old, fascinated by weapons and hating the police.
The investigating judges, on the other hand, ordered a dismissal for a forty-something, presented as a surrogate father of Radouane Lakdim and who was an intelligence informant.
A common law offender on file because of his radicalization, Radouane Lakdim stole a car in Carcassonne on the morning of March 23, 2018. Armed, he killed the 61-year-old passenger and injured the 26-year-old driver.
He then fired on a group of CRS near their barracks, wounding one of them, before joining a supermarket in Trèbes. Presenting himself as an Islamic State (IS) soldier and shouting “Allahu Akbar”, he killed a butcher and a customer.
Lieutenant-Colonel Beltrame, who had replaced a cashier taken hostage by Radouane Lakdim, had tried to obtain the surrender of the assailant, before having his throat cut.
The IS claim was deemed “opportunistic” by the courts: the investigations did not establish that Radouane Lakdim had had contact with the organization before taking action.
