Extremism: terrorist acts in Paris – possible accomplice in court

Seven years after an Islamist-motivated double murder of a pair of police officers near Paris, a suspected accomplice of the perpetrator has to stand trial today. The judiciary accuses the 30-year-old of being partly responsible for the perpetrator’s radicalization.

He is also said to have accompanied the 25-year-old, who was shot by police officers after the murder in June 2016, to the police officers’ house in the town of Magnanville on the evening of the crime. The defendant denies this. The act caused horror in France, which at the time was shaken by a series of Islamist terrorist attacks.

The 25-year-old perpetrator stabbed the officer when he arrived at his house and then took his wife and three-year-old son into his power. In between, he posted a video of the crime on the Internet and, in negotiations with the police, confessed to being part of the Islamic State terrorist militia. When elite police stormed the house and shot the perpetrator, they came across the body of the murdered officer. The only survivor of the bloodbath was their three-year-old son.

The circumstantial trial in Paris is based on a DNA trace of the defendant that was found on the police couple’s computer. For the public prosecutor’s office, it is proof that the 30-year-old was also initially in the house. The prosecution derives its co-responsibility for the radicalization of the perpetrator from, among other things, Telegram chats, the evaluation of which cast doubt on the defense at the start of the trial. A verdict is due on October 13th.