Trial of the November 13 attacks: who are the 20 accused? – BFMTV

20 people are tried from Wednesday by the special assize court for their involvement in the attacks of November 13. 14 will be physically present, the 6 others are judged by default.

They are suspected of having had a concrete and direct role in the logistics, preparation and execution of the November 13 attacks. From this Wednesday, the specially composed Assize Court judges 20 men. 14 of them will be physically present during this historic trial, six others will be judged by default. Five of them are presumed dead, the last is on the run.

If Salah Abdeslam appears as the main accused, justice and the victims while waiting for many more men like Osama Krayem or Mohamed Abrini.

The accused who will be present in the box

• Salah Abdeslam

Born September 15, 1989 in Brussels, the Franco-Moroccan Salah Abdeslam, 31, is the only member of the November 13 commandos still alive. He is suspected of having conveyed the two terrorists who blew themselves up at the Stade de France. He himself gave up his explosives belt in the evening for reasons still unknown. If he says he deflated at the last moment, expert reports show that his belt was defective.

Salah Abdeslam is a childhood friend of Abdelhamid Abaaoud, coordinator of several attacks in Europe and operational chief of the November 13 commandos. Installed with his family in Molenbeek, he was already known to the Belgian authorities for acts of delinquency. His brother Brahim was part of the “terraces” team, he died by blowing himself up at the Comptoir Voltaire.

Since his arrest on March 18, 2016, after four months of stalking, Salah Abdeslam has remained silent in front of the judges or during his trial in Brussels in 2018, where he was sentenced to twenty years in prison for shooting some police officers. days before his arrest. After the trial of the November 13 attacks, Salah Abdeslam will be tried again in Belgium – probably at the end of 2022 – for the double attack which killed 32 people in March 2016 at the airport and in a Brussels metro. He was indicted in this case for “participation in the activities of a terrorist group”.

• Mohamed Abrini

Born on December 27, 1984, Mohamed Abrini is a 36-year-old Belgian-Moroccan. He is appearing for having accompanied the November 13 commandos in the Paris region in what he himself calls the “death convoys”. He is accused of having participated in the financing of the attacks and the supply of weapons.

Justice expects a lot of answers from him. Why did he accompany the terrorists to Paris the day before the attacks before attempting to take a train, then finally a taxi, to return to Brussels? Were other attacks planned on the evening of the attacks? Has the defection of Mohamed Abrini dealt a blow to the organization of the commandos?

This childhood friend of the Abdeslam brothers was arrested in Brussels in April 2016. He has been detained in Belgium since that date and was transferred to France for trial. He must also be tried in Belgium for the double suicide bombing of March 2016 in Brussels. CCTV footage of Zaventem airport with two of the suicide bombers who blew themselves up there earned him the nickname “the man in the hat”.

• Mohammed Amri

Born on August 7, 1988, Mohammed Amri, 33, a Belgian-Moroccan, is also close to the Abdeslam brothers. During the investigation, he admitted to picking up Salah Abdeslam by car on the evening of the attacks to bring him back to Belgium, knowing that he was involved in the attacks.

Arrested in Belgium on November 14, he was extradited in July 2016 to France, where he has been imprisoned since that date.

• Hamza Attou

Born May 4, 1994, Hamza Attou, a 27-year-old Belgian-Moroccan, was arrested in Belgium the day after the November 13 attacks. He had accompanied Mohammed Amri to pick up Salah Abdeslam in Paris on the evening of the attacks.

Handed over to France in June 2016, he was imprisoned before being released under judicial supervision in May 2018.

• Yassine Atar

Yassine Atar, now aged 35, is suspected of having held a key to the Brussels hideout where Salah Abdeslam took refuge after the attacks. attacks. It is also in this hideout that the explosive belts used in Paris were manufactured.

Arrested in Brussels in March 2016, he was extradited in June 2018 to France, where he is imprisoned. His lawyers will plead his release.

• Sofien Ayari

Sofien Ayari was Salah Abdeslam’s companion on the run in Belgium. After joining the ranks of the Islamic State group at the end of 2014, this 28-year-old Tunisian returned to Europe in 2015 accompanied by Osama Krayem and Ahmad Alkhad, both also accused in this trial.

Arrested in Brussels at the same time as Salah Abdeslam in March 2016, he has already been sentenced to a twenty-year prison sentence in Belgium for having shot a police officer during the shooting in the rue de Dries in Forest. That day, the two accused fled before being arrested a few days later in Molenbeek.

His DNA was found in several hideouts that were used in the preparation of the November 13 attacks. Investigators suspect him of having wanted to commit or prepare, with Osama Krayen, an attack at Amsterdam-Schiphol airport in parallel with the Parisian attacks.

• Osama Krayem

Of Swedish nationality, Osama Krayem, aged 29, joined Syria in 2014 and then returned to Europe by the migrant route. Like Sofien Ayari, he was Salah Abdeslam’s companion in Brussels after the November 13 attacks. Detained in Belgium since April 2016, he was transferred to France for the trial

he was identified as one of the executioners of the Jordanian pilot assassinated by the Islamic State group in early 2015 in Syria.

Osama Krayem is part of the Franco-Belgian jihadist cell at the origin of the November 13 attacks and those in the metro and at Brussels airport. For these attacks, he was charged in Belgium with “terrorist assassinations”. He is believed to be the man the subway suicide bomber was filmed with just before the attack and was also identified as the buyer of the bags used to transport the bombs that exploded at the airport.

• Mohamed Bakkali

Considered to be one of the logisticians of the commando, Mohamed Bakkali is accused of having rented cars for the attacks. Detained in France since 2018, this 34-year-old Belgian-Moroccan is also being prosecuted for the rental, under a false identity, of hideouts for the jihadist cell in Brussels.

In addition, accused of having been the driver who brought Abdelhamid Abaaoud to Belgium and the gunman of the attack foiled by passengers in a Thalys train in August 2015, he was sentenced in this case to 25 years in prison in December. 2020. He appealed.

• Abdellah Chouaa

The last to be indicted in the investigation, this 40-year-old Belgian-Moroccan, born March 30, 1981, is suspected of having provided logistical support to the cell that prepared the attacks. He was notably close to Mohamed Abrini. Son of an imam from the Brussels district of Molenbeek, he was left free under judicial supervision.

• Ali El Haddad Asufi

This 36-year-old Belgian-Moroccan was in regular contact with members of the Franco-Belgian jihadist cell. Accused of having participated in the supply of weapons, he has been in detention since June 2019.

• Adel Haddadi and Muhammad Usman

Adel Haddadi, a 34-year-old Algerian, and Muhammad Usman, a 28-year-old Pakistani, were arrested in December 2015, a month after the attacks, in a migrant hostel in Austria. The two men left Syria and joined Europe by the migrant route with two suicide bombers from the Stade de France.

They are suspected of having wanted to commit an attack in France. Muhammad Usman is a former pyrotechnician of Pakistani jihadist groups known to be close to Al-Qaeda. They have been detained in France since June 2016.

• Farid Kharkhach

Belgian-Moroccan, 39, Farid Kharkhach is accused of having provided false papers to the cell at the request of Khalid El Bakraoui, one of the perpetrators of the Brussels attacks, in order to promote the return to Europe of several terrorists trained in the area Iraqi-Syrian. Identity documents that allowed these terrorists to be accommodated and thus evade the police.

Arrested in Belgium in January 2017, he has been detained in France since June 2017.

• Ali Oulkadi

Close to Brahim Abdeslam, this 37-year-old Frenchman, born July 9, 1984, is suspected of having helped Salah Abdeslam go into hiding when he arrived in Brussels on November 14, but has always denied having been aware of the terrorist project of the cell.

Arrested in Belgium on November 22, 2015 and handed over to France in April 2016, he was imprisoned before being released under judicial supervision in June 2018.

The accused tried in their absence

• Osama Atar

Born May 4, 1984, Osama Atar is a jihad veteran identified by the war name “Abu Ahmed al-Iraki”. He is considered to be one of the leaders of the intelligence arm of the Islamic State group.

According to the French magistrates, this Belgo-Moroccan is the authorizing officer of the Parisian attacks. Never arrested, he was reportedly killed by a western strike in the Iraqi-Syrian zone in November 2017.

• Ahmad Alkhald

Ahmad Alkhald, the assumed name behind which hides the Syrian Omar Darif, whose date and place of birth remain unknown, is considered the only major actor of the November 13 commandos still on the run.

His DNA was found on explosive belts used in the attacks in Paris. For investigators, he was one of the main bombers of the Islamic State group.

• Fabien and Jean-Michel Clain

Figures of the French “jihad”, these two Toulouse brothers were reportedly killed in February or March 2019 in an air strike in Syria.

Fabien Clain has been identified as the man who recorded the audio message claiming the November 13 attacks, in which his brother Jean-Michel chanted religious songs.

• Ahmed Dahmani

This 32-year-old Belgian-Moroccan, originally from Molenbeek like his friend Salah Abdeslam, is suspected of being a logistician of the jihadist cell who prepared the attacks.

This radicalized petty offender fled on November 14, 2015 to Turkey, where he was sentenced in 2016 to ten years in prison and imprisoned. He is still imprisoned there.

• Obeida Aref Dibo

This Syrian, called Abu Walid Al-Souri, was a member of the external operations cell of the Islamic State group, close to Ahmad Alkhad.

A cousin of men involved in the escape of Ahmed Dahmani, he is said to have died in a bombing in February 2016.