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The trial of Abdelkader Merah opens this Monday, March 25 before the Court of Appeal of Paris. The elder brother of Mohamed Merah, who had killed seven people in Toulouse and Montauban in March 2012, was sentenced in November 2017, in first instance, to 20 years in prison for criminal terrorist criminal conspiracy. He had, however, been acquitted of the accusation of complicity in these crimes, much to the chagrin of the civil parties.
It is the public prosecutor who appealed the verdict of first instance , finding that the Assize Court had not drawn all the legal consequences of the facts. In its judgment, the court stated that " if he shared well the motives of the jihadist, there is no evidence that Abdelkader Merah was aware of the criminal aims pursued by his brother ". This partial relaxation had angered the families of the victims.
Samuel Sandler, whose son and two grandsons were killed by Mohamed Merah in front of Ozar Hatorah, their Jewish school in Toulouse, March 19, 2012, is therefore preparing hard for this new trial and a face to face with the Merah family . " In anguish, it's obvious. You're right in saying the "Merah family" - I missed it, I usually do not pronounce that name - because it's really family. We saw the mother, I really did not really support her. I did not want to meet her, I asked for someone to warn me and no one told me. She is an accomplice, like her sons. "
The civil parties will be very numerous at the hearing, which for the moment is rather rare in the terrorist trials tried in France, points out Antoine Mégie, research professor at the University of Rouen: " It is a trial which is to on the sidelines because there is this whole media dimension, especially with lawyers taking a rather important place; There are also victims, and their place is quite strong and it is true that the trials that have been held since 2015 in France concern people who are called "ghosts" or "ghosts", so there are There are no direct victims of these departures or attempts to leave. So the trial that will happen in the second instance takes on a particular dimension. It must be understood that it will be part of a judicial reality that will produce lawsuits that will be much more important, especially in the number of civil parties - we think of Charlie Hebdo, but also the trial following November 13, 2015 , and then to Nice. So, this foreshadows a judicial experience that France will know in the next five or ten years. "
At this trial, Fettah Malki will also be retried. In the first instance, he was sentenced to 14 years in prison for selling to Mohamed Merah the weapon used to kill Jewish soldiers, children and a teacher, even though he knew of his jihadist radicalization.