- Tyler Vilus is the first French jihadist accused of murders committed in Syria to appear before the special assize court. He is also suspected of having led a group of combatants there.
- On the second day of this trial, several DGSI investigators were heard and returned to the journey and the role played by Tyler Vilus within Daesh.
- For the intelligence services, this 30-year-old from Troyes played a preponderant role within the French jihadist movement.
On the screen installed opposite the special assize court, the shadow of an investigator from the DGSI (Directorate General of Internal Security) stands out. Her tone is a bit borrowed - the policewoman studiously reads her notes - but her words are nonetheless strong. After a detailed presentation on the role and activities of the French jihadist tried since Thursday, Tyler Vilus, the police asserts: "He will have left his mark on the history of French jihadism in Syria. As much by the wealth as by the intensity of the activities carried out on the spot by this jihadist except norm. "
Charged with investigating the route and the role played by this 30-year-old man who joined Daesh in 2013, two police officers from the intelligence services this Friday portrayed the “atypical” profile of this man, the first Frenchman tried for “murders”. committed in Syria. Active and proselytizing on social networks, suspected of having recruited several fighters, emir of a French-speaking brigade and member of the Islamic police, Tyler Vilus would have become, for the DGSI, one of the major figures of the French jihadist movement .
130,000 messages analyzed
For the DGSI investigators, no doubt. The man installed in the box in the Vedel room of the old palace on the Ile de la Cité is nothing like an ordinary “ghost”. Everything, in the behavior and the numerous traces left by Tyler Vilus, testifies to his so particular status acquired within Daesh, they believe. There is his caution on social networks: extremely active and using several accounts on Twitter and Facebook, the man never directly posts a photo to identify him. And his confidences made to his relatives throughout his stay in Syria.
In total, the investigators used nearly 130,000 messages sent by Vilus via the Skype application between 2013 and 2014. Numerical elements which made it possible, according to the DGSI, to establish a chronology of the activities carried out by the accused in the area . First located in Aleppo and close to several other jihadist figures like two jailers of French journalists detained hostage by Daesh, the man then took the head of a squadron of around forty French speakers in 2014 within the “Katibat strangers ".
Considered "a chef"
Staying in constant touch with his mother, Christine Rivière - herself who has come to the area several times and sentenced to 10 years in prison for "terrorist criminal association" in 2017 -, Tyler Vilus is spilling over on his evolution within the jihadist organization. One of his stepmothers - Vilus is polygamous - confided in 2013: "He occupies important functions, he is considered locally as a chef. At the start of 2014, the accused appeared on a video alongside Najim Laachraoui - the pyrotechnician for the attacks of November 13, 2015 - in which they burned a flag of the Free Syrian Army. The sequence takes place near the town of Hraytan where major massacres were perpetrated by IS.
Tyler Vilus, he defends himself from any participation in abuses. However, one of his Facebook contacts will identify him on a photo posted on the network and on which there are dismembered bodies. At court, the man delivers a little lesson in virality and "community management" to justify the appearance of his name on this image: "Everyone knows that now if you want a publication to be seen on Facebook, you have to tag [identify] accounts that have a lot of friends. (…) But if I had really been present at that time, with my ideology, (…) I would have directly posted videos and photos of these massacres ”. However, no reference to Hraytran's abuses was directly published on Vilus' Facebook or Twitter accounts.
Not there "by chance"
If the second policewoman interviewed this Friday afternoon admitted that "the exact nature of her duties could not be clarified by the investigations", several elements make it possible to attest to her status as a "cop" as he will tell her mother and this quickly after his arrival in Syria in 2013. A document of the terrorist organization found in 2018 by a former English soldier who went to fight Daesh with the Kurds lists for example the police identified in the city of Shaddadi. The war name of Vilus appears there. In another conversation with his mother, the thirty-something evokes an "investigation" conducted by him: "I saw the Islamic judge, I gave him information (...) there will be sanctions," he wrote. . Finally, there is this video of the murder of two Syrian prisoners dated 2015, which now earns him a life sentence.
"There is no profile equivalent to that of Mr. Vilus in French prisons currently"
“From the first seconds, Tyler Vilus appears in the foreground of the scene. He is not wearing a hood and stands on the same line as the two combatants who are going to execute the prisoners with a bullet in the head, ”explains one of the two investigators from the DGSI. Joined by another man also wearing a military trellis, the accused held a walkie-talkie in his hand and had an automatic pistol. "He is first from behind, facing the crowd, as if he was watching the public," said the police. Once the execution is complete, Tyler Vilus and the man standing next to him raise their right hand to the sky "in victory," she says.
Tyler Vilus for his part always assured that he had attended this execution by chance, joining the crowd at the exit of the mosque. A version scanned by the investigator: "His dress, his positioning, his behavior show that he is not there by chance but that he is part of the team responsible for this execution. And her colleague concluded: "No other jihadist has carried out such a varied number of activities at the same time. He was not the most senior Frenchman in ISIS, but the DGSI considers that there is no profile equivalent to that of Mr. Vilus in French prisons currently. "
Justice
Jihad: "I was going to Syria to fight, not to do humanitarian work", recognizes Tyler Vilus at his trial
Justice
Terrorism: "I became an emir", Tyler Vilus, the first French jihadist tried for murders in Syria
- Justice
- Terrorist attacks in Paris
- Syria
- Abdelhamid Abaaoud
- Jihadism
- Trial
- Terrorism
- Daesh