An unprecedented terrorism case in Overseas. Jérôme Lebeau, a young Reunionist radicalized on the Internet was sentenced this Thursday in Paris to 28 years in prison for having shot police officers who arrested him in 2017, and his mother, who had paid for his weapons, to four years in prison closed.
The Paris special assize court, which was trying its first terrorist case from an overseas department, added a two-thirds security sentence to the young man's 25 years and ordered his entry in the Authors' Register terrorist offenses (Fijait).
🔴 The specially composed Assize Court sentences Jérôme Lebeau from Reunion Island to 28 years' imprisonment (2/3 of security) for having planned a violent action and shot at #GIPN police officers who came to search his home in April 2017 (Info @CAT_Centre)
- CAT (@CAT_Centre) March 5, 2020Her mother, Marie-Annick Lebeau, 59, was sentenced to five years' imprisonment, including one year suspended probation: she will have to comply with a series of obligations, including follow-up psycho-social. After appearing free, after less than two years of pretrial detention, she immediately returned to prison. The court also ordered his registration with Fijait.
Apologies to victims
These sentences are a little lower than those of 30 and 8 years required by the prosecution, which described a "hellish couple" engaged in jihadist ideology. The representative of the public prosecutor had estimated that the "fusional relation" maintained by Marie-Annick Lebeau with her son had favored "the conditions of passage to the act" of the young man: converted to Islam like him, although not having only a very superficial knowledge of this religion and not wearing the veil, "she shared her radical commitment".
"The sentence (28 years) is reasonable," reacted Laurent-Franck Liénard, the lawyer for one of the injured police officers with the local television channel Antenne Réunion. "The important thing is that he (Jérôme Lebeau) be away from society for a long time, the time he can make amends and when he leaves, be appeased in his head, in his behavior and in his religious practice" , he adds.
Jérôme Lebeau had wished to address "his apologies to the police" before the deliberation, reports Antenne Réunion. "I am aware of my actions," added the young man, adding that he was afraid of the verdict. At the helm, he explained that he had radicalized over the years, but since his detention (in 2017), he said he tried to work on himself to get away from Daesh. The Reunionese obtained his college certificate last year behind bars and hopes to reintegrate into society. A "sign of change for him," said his lawyer, Ménya Arab-Tigrine.
A "survivalist delirium"
On April 27, 2017 at 6 a.m., Jérôme Lebeau opened fire on police officers who came to arrest him for apologizing for terrorism, in the apartment where he lived with his mother in Saint-Benoît de La Réunion. The young mongrel had been reported, via the specialized platform Pharos, for pro-jihad comments on the Internet.
The shots were precise, two police officers, civil parties to the trial, were injured despite their shields. The young shooter was shot and overpowered. In the apartment are discovered several weapons, 400 ammunition, a hunting dagger: an arsenal that he will justify by a "survivalist delirium". "When I shot, it was to kill, otherwise I would have used rubber bullets," he said in police custody, before qualifying his remarks and invoking a severe "paranoia".
For the prosecution, "this attempted murder is not premeditated but it is not fortuitous. It is part of a terrorist context ", which begins with the radicalization of Jérôme Lebeau, whom he himself situates in early 2015, continues with the viewing of hundreds of videos to the glory of jihadists, an attempt to fabricate explosives and shooting training sessions. Until this April morning when, now "programmed to kill", according to the prosecution, he shoots the police "knowingly".
A young man in the grip
The accused, however, always stated that he did not hear the officers shouting "Police" when entering his home. Although he admitted admiring attacks on French soil, he denied having had such a project himself. His lawyer Ménya Arab-Tigrine did not seek to minimize his jihadist engagement at the time, but stressed that he had "nothing premeditated" and not "not targeted" the agents.
She described a young introvert, a son suffocated by his mother and never recognized by his father, spending 14 hours a day on his computer and who believed he had given meaning to his life by joining an "extremist sect". “The challenge was the liberation of this cage, of these rights of way. "
The lawyer of Marie-Annick Lebeau, Me Martin Desrues, had pleaded the acquittal of a woman without any judicial precedent, scrupulously respecting her judicial control and who represented "no danger" for the company.
Justice
A young Reunion Islander and his mother tried in an unprecedented terrorism case in overseas France
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