These attacks killed four people, including Lieutenant-Colonel Arnaud Beltrame who gave himself up as a hostage in place of a woman before having his throat cut.
The anti-terrorist prosecutor’s office requested on Friday August 5 the referral to the special assize court of a woman and six men belonging to the entourage of the author of the attacks in Trèbes and Carcassonne in March 2018, which had killed five people including the Lieutenant-Colonel Arnaud Beltrame, AFP learned from a source familiar with the matter.
The investigations, which lasted four years, concluded that the assailant, Radouane Lakdim – killed on the spot – had acted without an accomplice but benefited from logistical and intellectual assistance in the preparation of his attacks, marked by the courageous gesture of Arnaud Beltrame. The 45-year-old gendarme had given himself up as a hostage in place of a woman before being slaughtered. The National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office (Pnat) demands that the assailant’s girlfriend and closest friend, Marine P., 24, and Samir M., 27, be tried for “participation in a criminal terrorist conspiracy“. Sofian B., now 24 years old and already convicted when he was a minor for having planned to go to the Iraqi-Syrian zone in 2017, will have to be tried for having provided intellectual support to Radouane Lakdim, estimates the Pnat.
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In its requisitions, consulted by AFP, the anti-terrorist prosecutor’s office demands that two other men be tried for “non-denunciation of terrorist crime“. One of them, the author’s brother-in-law, will also have to be tried for having cleaned the Lakdim’s home, taking a large bag with him, before a search by the police, considers the Pnat. Two other suspects will have to be judged for related offenses in particular the possession of weapons, asks the Pnat. The prosecution is also requesting a dismissal for an intelligence informant, indicted since 2019 for participation in a criminal terrorist association. It is now up to the investigating judges to order or not a trial at the assizes, following or not the qualifications adopted by the anti-terrorism prosecution.
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 (republican security companies) near their barracks, injuring one of them, before joining a Super U supermarket in Trèbes. Posing as a soldier of the Islamic State group and shouting “God is greathe had killed a butcher, a customer and then Lieutenant-Colonel Beltrame. IS claimed responsibility for the attacks in the afternoon, a claim deemed “opportunisticby the prosecution. The investigations did not establish that Radouane Lakdim had had contact with the organization before taking action.
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