The National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office (Pnat) has requested the referral to the Criminal Court, and not to the Assizes, of 12 people “acquired in the theses of the ultra-right” suspected of having “developed a project of violent action” against Emmanuel Macron in November 2018, AFP learned on Wednesday from a source close to the investigation.
The Pnat wants these eleven men and this woman, aged 22 to 62 and who were in contact via a group called the “Barjols”, to be tried for criminal association of terrorist criminals, according to the final indictment signed on August 18 and consulted. Wednesday by AFP.
14 people indicted
The final decision on whether or not to commit to trial, to the assizes or to corrections, now rests with the examining magistrate. The judicial investigation was opened shortly after the arrest on November 6, 2018 of several sympathizers of the radical far right. The investigations then led to the indictment of 14 people in total, for criminal terrorist association, liable to assizes.
Following nearly four years of investigation, the prosecution requested that the charges be dropped for two of them. And he asked that the other twelve be retained for the criminal association of criminal terrorists, an offense tried before the criminal court. The Pnat accuses them of meetings, research for equipment, training and contacts established with a view to a “project of violent action” against the head of state.
Ceramic knife, dagger and bible
The investigators had decided to intervene after learning of the displacement of one of the administrators of the Facebook group, Jean-Pierre Bouyer, a retiree from Isère, in the east of France where Emmanuel Macron was for his memorial journey on the centenary of the end of the Great War.
In a conversation intercepted by the police, this pensioner had mentioned the idea of attacking the head of state with a ceramic knife, which cannot be detected by security checks. In the vehicle with which he had gone to Moselle had been discovered a dagger in its case and a Bible, according to the final indictment.
The prosecution requested his dismissal for illegal acquisition and transport of a pistol as well. Initially placed in pre-trial detention, he has been free for several months under judicial supervision. “This correctionalization required by the National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office acts as a half-confession, from which we deduce that the procedure is far from being as serious as what had been announced at the start of the investigation”, reacted to AFP his lawyer, Me Olivia Ronen.