The defense of Farid Khakharch, tried for having provided false identity papers to the jihadist cell, pleaded acquittal for the Belgian-Moroccan, who does not know any of his co-defendants.
At the trial of the November 13 attacks, the defense of Farid Khakharch, tried for having provided false identity papers to the jihadist cell, pleaded Thursday for acquittal for the one who was only “the intermediary of an intermediary”.
The prosecution had requested last week six years of imprisonment against the 39-year-old Belgian-Moroccan, tried for “terrorist criminal association”.
“Out of greed and greed”, the Advocates General had estimated, “he chose to close his eyes to the problematic personality and convictions” of the very radical Khalid El Bakraoui, chief logistician of the cell which killed 130 people in Paris and Saint Denis.
At the hearing, during four hours of very technical pleadings, two of his lawyers tried to demonstrate the contrary, and asked that he be sentenced instead for “complicity in forgery”.
A total of 18 falsified identity documents – having allowed members of the commandos from Syria to cross Europe via the migrant route or used for the rental of “stashes” or cars – were discovered during the investigation. .
Farid Kharkhach was “the intermediary of the forger’s intermediary” for only three of them – four according to the prosecution – insists his lawyer Me Fanny Vial.
“Faced with the empty chairs left by the dead terrorists, there remains the abyss and the suffering of survivors. We understand that it is unbearable and that can lead to deporting hatred on second knives”, also says Me Vial. But it is necessary “to replace the cursor of the just qualification and the just sentence”, she asks the specially composed assize court.
Full of fakes and phobias – he is “afraid of bees, snakes and planes”, lists his second lawyer Me Marie Lefrancq – this father “devoted” to his two children who has “never been a practitioner” has made UFO figure in the box during the nine months of hearing.
“When I saw it on TV, I fell off my chair”
His defense recalls that Farid Kharkhach is also the only one who does not know any of his co-defendants.
“I don’t know what he is doing here,” said the principal of them, Salah Abdeslam, at the start of the trial in September.
In a white shirt and arms crossed, the tall brunette with hair pulled up in a bun to hide stress-related alopecia areata listens carefully to his lawyers, sometimes approving their words with a nod.
During his interrogation before the court in March, this big talker had sworn as much as possible that “never” he had suspected that Khalid El Bakraoui (who will be blown up during the attacks in Brussels in March 2016) was radicalized . “When I saw it on TV, I fell off my chair,” he said.
During a hearing that brought him so much trouble, he however admitted having noticed that the person to whom he provided the false papers was “radicalized since always, deeply in Islam”.
Confessions “incoherent, contradictory, of” someone who does not know how to get out of it and who is ready to tell anything “, supports Me Vial, recalling that his client only met Khalid El Bakraoui “four times maximum”.
As proof, she adds, when asked for examples of this “radicalization”, Farid Kharkhach only found the chief logistician’s “down” look when he greeted him, and the “inches” Allah” which sometimes punctuated his remarks.
As for his work for the network of counterfeiters, he only brought in Farid Kharkhach “300 euros”, finally insist his lawyers, rereading his declarations: “I did not know that it was to carry out attacks, I am not not a monster,” he said. “If I had done this for 30,000 or 40,000, you could say that I had walked on my conscience”.
Defense arguments continue until June 24. The defendants will have the floor last on the 27th, the verdict is expected on the 29th.