The prosecution on Friday requested a life sentence against the French jihadist Tyler Vilus, emir of the Islamic State group, for crimes committed in Syria from 2013 to 2015. Advocate General Guillaume Michelin asked the Assize Court to Paris to attach this penalty to the maximum safety period, "which is only 22 years, alas", facing a dangerous man who "has not changed an iota".
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A man who put his intelligence at the service of terrorism
"When you dissipate the smoke curtains around Tyler Vilus, you only see corpses. It is up to you to put an end to this carnage," he said to the court. "All stages of the course of the accused, 30 years old, are intertwined with those of the construction of the caliphate," said the Advocate General, describing the "exceptional" profile of a man who put his intelligence at the service of terrorism. Tyler Vilus is one of the first of his generation to reach Syria, for a first stay in late 2012, and one of the rare individuals still alive to have returned.
"Jihad Directory"
"Opening the Vilus file means opening the directory of French-speaking jihadist personalities. He knows almost all of them," he adds, before listing the names of Omar Diaby and Mourad Fares, recruiters from a vast sector , of Rodrigue Quenum, photographed holding a freshly cut head by the hair, his "brother" Rached Riahi, member of the so-called Cannes-Torcy sector, probably died in Syria and above all, of the team of the attacks of November 13 2015.
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Settled in the Aleppo region (north-west of Syria) in March 2013, he announced his promotion in the summer to his mother - herself sentenced to ten years in prison for her trips to Syria with her son and for terrorist financing: "In addition to being a cop, I became emir of a group of French people". For the Advocate General, he is "a warlord": posted in Hraytan, on the outskirts of Aleppo (west), he takes part in the head of a group of French-speaking combatants in "cleaning operations", he is "praised for its lethal efficacy".
There is no evidence to link him to the attacks of November 13, 2015
From 2014, he established himself as an "Islamic policeman" in Shaddadi, in the east. It appears in a video released in 2015 by the IS media office: two former prisoner soldiers are shot in the head. Uncovered face, equipped with a walkie-talkie and an automatic pistol, Tyler Vilus stands on the same line as the executioners. The accused, who faces life in prison for this crime, said that he was there a little by chance, "at the exit of the mosque". A defense swept aside by the prosecution, for whom Tyler Vilus only performs his duties. "He is part of the unit responsible for inflicting punishment, it is perfectly logical that he is on an execution scene: such is his function as a police officer," according to the Advocate General. Like the DGSI and the investigating judge, Guillaume Michelin does not believe that Tyler Vilus has given up his deadly projects.
Verdict expected Friday evening
And if there is no evidence to link him to the attacks of November 13, 2015, he believes that he was returning to France to "strike", as he said to Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the coordinator of the Paris attacks after his arrest in Turkey on July 2, 2015. Having kept his phone for a few days, he writes: "his changes nothing. When I go out jagis" - and will affirm to the investigators that he sought to coax IS to gain Mauritania, via Prague. A scenario contradicted by his messages to his "brother" Rached Riahi, who remained in Syria, to whom he expressed his fear at the promise of death as a martyr, according to the prosecution.
"If he had had to take part in these attacks, he would have been one of the persons responsible or the person in charge", hammered the lawyer general, calling for an extreme vigilance vis-a-vis a charismatic terrorist, who exerts "a caressing grip" those who approach him and remained "an emir". The verdict is expected Friday evening, after the defense pleadings.