A carnage probably narrowly avoided in a Hollywood scenario where passengers manage to control the shooter.
The trial of the foiled Thalys train attack in the summer of 2015, sponsored by the coordinator of the November 13 attacks, opened on Monday November 16 in Paris.
The hearing before the special assize court began at 10:30 am, with a long reminder from the president of the sanitary instructions, so that "this Covid does not disrupt the progress of the debates".
He then asked the four defendants, three of whom speak through an Arabic interpreter, to introduce themselves.
Standing in the box, Thalys shooter Ayoub El Khazzani, a Moroccan now 31, is dressed in a sky blue denim shirt, his black hair held in a small bun.
He describes his identity, in a little hesitant French, and his old profession: "pastry".
A cell that perpetuated a series of attacks
Beside him in the box, Bilal Chatra, who had played the role of scout on the migrant route between Turkey and Germany, Redouane El Amrani Ezzerrifi and Mohamed Bakkali, the alleged logistician of the November 13 attacks.
The latter two are accused of helping El Khazzani to reach Europe, which they deny.
Ayoub El Khazzani had joined the Islamic State group in Syria in May 2015. In the summer, he had taken the road to Europe from Turkey with his sponsor, who had come to pilot from Belgium the jihadist cell which was also preparing the terrorist attacks. November 13 in Paris: Abdelhamid Abaaoud.
According to investigators, the Thalys attack is part of a series of jihadist attacks planned from Syria: the aborted one against a church in Villejuif, in the Paris region, perpetrated in April 2015 by Sid-Ahmed Ghlam, recently convicted to life imprisonment, the November attacks in Paris and then those of March 22, 2016 in Brussels.
On August 21, 2015, at the end of the afternoon, El Khazzani, then 25, boarded the Brussels station on the Amsterdam-Paris train.
He goes to the bathroom, takes off his shirt, puts a pistol in his belt and a Kalashnikov slung over his shoulder.
His bag placed on his stomach is open, magazines and ammunition close at hand.
In front of the toilets, two passengers wait.
When the door opens and they find themselves facing this shirtless, armed man, "looking in a trance", they first believe in a joke.
Before understanding.
The first passenger pounces on him, the second manages to catch the Kalashnikov.
Ayoub El Khazzani takes out his pistol, shoots him in the back, and retrieves the assault rifle.
Three Americans on vacation, including two soldiers, are alerted by the noise.
They pounce on him, disarm him and overpower him with the help of other passengers.
The train was stopped at Arras station, the author of the attack arrested.
"He had enough ammunition to kill 300 people," insists Me Thibault de Montbrial, who represents the Americans and has no doubt that a "mass attack" was avoided.
The accused says he wanted to target the Americans
After a year and a half of silence, 130 dead in Paris and 32 in Brussels, Ayoub El Khazzani asked to be heard by investigators.
He assured them that Abdelhamid Abaaoud, killed by the police shortly after November 13, had asked him to target only the Americans, not civilians.
An argument deemed "not serious", while the same Abaaoud was preparing at that time the attacks of November 13 against civilians.
The presence of the Americans on this train was also impossible to anticipate.
Celebrated as heroes in France, where they received the Legion of Honor at the Élysée Palace, and on their return to the United States, the three Americans, now 28, will be present at the hearing on Thursday and Friday, when The testimonies of the passengers of the train are expected, their lawyer told the court.
Mark Moogalian, the Franco-American professor injured by bullets, is present in the room with his wife.
In 2018, Moogalian, his wife and the three young Americans had played their own roles in a film by Clint Eastwood, "Le 15h17 pour Paris".
The 90-year-old director should, as such, be heard as a witness by videoconference next week.
The trial, which is to last until December 17, opens in a context of a strong terrorist threat after a succession of three attacks in one month, in front of the former premises of Charlie Hebdo, in Conflans-Saint-Honorine and in Nice.
With AFP
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