Thalys car 12, in which Ayoub El Khazzani was controlled on August 21, 2015. -
PHILIPPE HUGUEN
Four men, involved in the attack on a Thalys connecting Paris to Amsterdam in August 1015, appear before the special assize court.
Two people were injured.
Ayoub el Khazzani, who opened fire inside the train, will answer for "attempted assassinations in connection with a terrorist enterprise" and "criminal terrorist association".
This Moroccan citizen, then 26 years old, was acting on the instructions of Abdelhamid Abaaoud, coordinator of the terrorist cell that struck France and Belgium in 2015 and 2016.
Ayoub el Khazzani claims to have wanted to target only American soldiers and not civilians.
He claims to have given up on his own plans for an attack at the last second, too late to avoid a fight with the passengers who wanted to disarm him.
The courageous intervention of a few passengers undoubtedly made it possible to avoid carnage.
Five years after opening fire in a Thalys connecting Amsterdam to Paris and injuring two people, Ayoub el Khazzani appears from Monday before a special assize court for "attempted assassinations in connection with a terrorist enterprise" and "association criminal terrorist evildoers ”.
Alongside this 31-year-old Moroccan, in the accused's box, three men are on trial for their involvement in this attack, sponsored by the coordinator of the jihadist attacks of November 13, Abdelhamid Abaaoud.
On August 21, 2015, the Thalys 9364 left Amsterdam more than two hours ago when Damien was seized with a pressing desire.
At 5.45 p.m., the 28-year-old goes to the toilets located between cars 12 and 13. They are occupied.
A few minutes later, the door finally opens.
Shirtless, haggard eyes, carrying a backpack on his stomach and a Kalashnikov slung over his shoulder, Ayoub el Khazzani, 25, slowly comes out.
Instinctively, Damien grabs him by the neck and tries to block him between the sliding door and the luggage rack.
The melee lasts about fifteen seconds.
Meanwhile, Mark Moogalian, a 51-year-old Franco-American who travels with his wife, manages to retrieve the assault rifle and runs away with it.
“Go Spencer!
"
But the assailant, mounted in Brussels station, manages to free himself and shoots in the back of this professor at the Sorbonne.
Hit in the shoulder, he collapses.
Moogalian finds the strength to crawl for cover between two seats.
The bangs woke three vacationing US servicemen who had dozed off, car 12. "Go Spencer!"
As El Khazzani targets Damien with the Kalashnikov he picked up, Spencer Stone leaps at him and knocks him down.
His friends, Anthony Sadler and Aleksander Skarlatos, come to help him and punch and kick the shooter who tries to injure them with a cutter.
They eventually manage to knock him out and tie him up.
At 6:12 p.m., the train stops at Arras station, the police arrest Ayoub el Khazzani.
They seize the Kalashnikov, nine thirty-round magazines, a 9mm Lugger M80 pistol, an additional magazine, a 16cm cutter, a gasoline can and a telephone.
"He had 270 ammunition on him, enough to kill 300 people," said Mr. Thibault de Montbrial, the lawyer for the three Americans.
In police custody, El Khazzani says he wanted to commit a theft with these weapons he would have found in a park in Brussels.
But investigators find it hard to believe this man, known in Spain for having disseminated hate messages against the West and called for jihad among the faithful of a mosque in Algeciras.
On August 25, 2015, he was indicted.
During their investigations, the investigators discovered that this Moroccan, who had settled in 2014 with his sister in Molenbeek, Belgium, had joined Daesh in Syria in May 2015. He then returned to Europe by taking the migrant route. with Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a Belgian of Moroccan origin who had radicalized in prison in 2012. The latter, who was part of Daesh's immigrant brigade, was tasked with coordinating a series of attacks prepared in Syria : the attack on a church in Villejuif (Val-de-Marne) by Sid-Ahmed Ghlam, the Thalys by Ayoub el Khazzani, but also the attacks of November 13 and Brussels in March 2016.
"I am not a slaughterer"
After his first statements, el Khazzani remains silent.
It was only after the Paris attacks in November 2017 and July 2018 that he delivered his version of the facts to investigators.
According to him, his target was actually the Americans who were traveling in this Thalys.
He explains that Abaaoud had given him the number of the car they were going to be in, and had described them to help him recognize them.
But, assures el Khazzani, he did not intend to attack civilians.
“I am not a murderer.
I am a noble fighter ”, he then proclaims.
Investigators doubt it.
How could he know that the Americans, childhood friends who came to Europe for tourism, were soldiers?
And how can we believe that Abaaoud, who was preparing the November 13 attacks, asked him to spare the civilians?
Ayoub el Khazzani also claims to have given up the last second to use his weapons.
But for fear of being killed by the Americans, he had shot his Lugger at Mark Moogalian after asking him to release his Kalashnikov.
He adds that he did not have the courage to shoot Spencer Stone, which gave the American military time to pounce on him.
"All this is corroborated, it seems to me, by the file", declares his lawyer, Me Sarah Mauger-Poliak.
“My client is anxiously awaiting this trial.
He has been in solitary confinement for four years, he wants to explain himself and be fixed on his fate, ”she adds, adding that this“ very shy ”man has“ changed profoundly for several years. years ”.
Now, el Khazzani "strongly condemns" the attacks "that we have known lately".
The trial is scheduled to last until December 17.
He faces life imprisonment.
Society
Thalys attack: The shooter and three other suspects sent back to the assizes
Society
The three American heroes of the Thalys received French nationality
Society
Terrorism
Justice
Trial
Jihad
Attack in a Thalys
Attack
Abdelhamid Abaaoud
Ayoub El Khazzani