Trial of the January 2015 attacks: the ex-mentor of the Kouachi brothers struggles to convince
Farid Benyettou, here in March 2018 in Paris.
AP Photo / Francois Mori
Text by: RFI Follow
3 min
The special assize court of Paris heard this Saturday, October 3, Farid Benyettou, the former preacher of the so-called Buttes-Chaumont sector, a channel for the routing of jihadists in Iraq dismantled in 2005, and repentant mentor of the Kouachi brothers.
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His testimony was eagerly awaited.
And for good reason: a figure of radical Islam in the early 2000s, Farid Benyettou played a key role in the so-called “Buttes-Chaumont” sector, dismantled in 2005, which aimed to send jihadists to the ranks of Al-Qaeda in Iraq.
Self-proclaimed “Emir” of this group of radicalized young people, he had as followers the brothers Kouachi and Peter Cherif, presented as a possible sponsor of the Charlie Hebdo massacre.
At the bar this Saturday, Farid Benyettou's first words are for the victims to whom he apologizes.
The 39-year-old former preacher, now a truck driver, then answers vague and rambling questions from the president of the court.
The man who says he no longer goes to a mosque assumes that he was the religious leader of the Kouachi brothers in the early 2000s. Chérif especially, whom he encouraged to go to Iraq.
Many questions
But in prison where Farid Benyettou is serving a six-year sentence for his role in the Buttes-Chaumont industry, a guard shakes his jihadist convictions.
From 2009, then begins for him a "
long questioning
", which leads to his de-radicalization.
When a lawyer asks him if he is Charlie, Farid Benyettou answers "
yes
", without hesitation.
However, the civil parties refuse to believe it.
If he distanced himself from radical Islamism, why did he continue to have contact with the Kouachi brothers until November 2014, but also with other figures of the jihadist movement?
Farid Benyettou says he was doing everything to avoid them, but that Chérif Kouachi came knocking on his door unexpectedly.
The civil parties are annoyed.
Could he not have acted?
Use his influence to distract him from these radical ideas?
“
I haven't stopped having discussions with him.
I even had the courage to tell him that I was against what Mohamed Merah had done
”, clumsily defends Benyettou, who describes a Chérif Kouachi closed to discussion.
“
He listened to those who said what he wanted to hear.
The day I held a speech contrary
"to his expectations,"
he no longer wanted to listen to me
.
A lawyer then seeks to make him say that he was aware of the plans of the three terrorists.
Farid Benyettou denies outright.
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