It is one of the most important clients of French anti-terrorism. Tyler Vilus, 30, is one of the first to have left for Syria, in 2012. His shadow hangs over the Paris attacks on November 13, 2015. He appears from this Thursday before the Court of Assizes specially constituted for the terrorism, suspected of having led a group of foreign fighters, but also for assassinations committed in the Iraqo-Syrian zone. This Daesh framework, whose trajectory is still surrounded by mysteries, incurs perpetuity.
Performance videos posted on Facebook
When Tyler Vilus went to Syria in 2012, the combatants still passed through the official border post. "I never did that I was going to Syria, I even had camouflage clothes," he said at the bar. The 30-year-old from Troyes returned at length on his journey, which embraces all the upheavals of jihad in Syria. Prolix, he details everything, including the Snickers he eats after the bombing, but eludes the essentials.
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He also related the meetings that brought him from a Salafist engagement in Tunisia to the Islamic State. Tyler Vilus claims that he did nothing but military police on the spot, but the investigations have underlined his role as an emir in the terrorist organization, part of a brigade of foreigners, which he refutes.
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The 30-year-old also said nothing about the execution videos in which he appeared, and which he had posted on Facebook with this comment "Death laughing, this is only a small part of what we did ". These are the images that have earned him the charge of assassinations in the Iraqi-Syrian zone. But the biggest mystery that the court will inevitably address remains its links with the November 13 commandos, which he frequented in Syria.
Links with the November 13 commandos?
When he was arrested in July 2015 at Istanbul airport, betrayed by the photo of his Swedish passport, Tyler Vilus was placed in detention but managed to keep his cell phone, from which he sent several SMS, to Abdelamid Abaaoud. The coordinator of the November 13 attacks is then in the process of organizing the attacks. Vilus writes to him "When I go out, I act". The jihadist claims that he was talking about going to settle in Mauritania but the investigators suspect him of having wanted to carry out an attack, without having been able to support it in the file.
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Tyler Vilus is not the only one to have left for Syria since his mother, Christine Rivière, nicknamed "Mamie Jihad" was sentenced in 2018 to ten years in prison for terrorist financing and for three stays on the territory of the State Islamic, with his son. She was walking there with a belt of explosives at her waist.