The National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor's Office (Pnat) required a trial for four suspects in the investigation into the assassination of police officer Xavier Jugelé on the Champs-Élysées on April 20, 2017, we learned from a judicial source on Tuesday. That day, three days before the first round of the presidential election, Karim Cheurfi, a 39-year-old Frenchman with a heavy judicial past and already convicted of attempted murders on police officers, shot Xavier Jugelé and injured two other members of the police, before being shot.
Man charged with "criminal terrorist association"
In its final indictment, delivered Thursday, the Pnat claims that one of the four suspects, Nourredine A., be tried before the Paris Assize Court for "criminal terrorist association". At the time of his indictment, in June 2017, a source close to the investigation had detailed that, according to the investigations, Karim Cheurfi had exchanged or sold his motorcycle for the weapon which had been used to kill Xavier Jugelé. "It is Nourredine A., one of his acquaintances, who would have acquired the motorcycle against the assault rifle," added this source.
Regarding the other three suspects, their indictment was also required for "violation of the law on weapons", without the aggravating circumstance of terrorism being however retained against them, underlined the judicial source. The DNA of two of them had notably been found on the weapon.
No sign of "radicalization" in prison
The attack, on one of the most touristic arteries of the capital, had been claimed by the Islamic State organization (IS). Karim Cheurfi had not presented Islamist "signs of radicalization" in prison, explained at the time the former public prosecutor of Paris, François Molins. A handwritten message defending the cause of IS was however found on a piece of paper near his body.
From January 2015, an unprecedented wave of jihadist attacks hit France, killing a total of 258 people, sponsored by ISIS or inspired by its calls to target, in particular, police officers or soldiers.