Mohamed Bakkali (4th from right) in the box of the accused -

ELISABETH DE POURQUERY / AFP

  • Four men, involved in the attack on a Thalys connecting Paris to Amsterdam in August 2015, have been appearing before the special assize court since Monday.

    A passenger was seriously injured.

  • Ayoub El Khazzani, who opened fire inside the train, responds to "attempted assassinations in connection with a terrorist enterprise" and "criminal terrorist association".

    This Moroccan citizen, then 26 years old, was acting on the instruction of Abdelhamid Abaaoud, coordinator of the terrorist cell that struck France and Belgium in 2015 and 2016.

  • This Friday, the court questioned Mohamed Bakkali, a 33-year-old Belgian accused of having been the “driver” of Abdelhamid Abaaoud and Ayoub El Khazzani, in the final part of their trip between Syria and Belgium.

At the special assize court in Paris,

"They are trying to put me in a position!"

Shaved hair, trimmed beard, green shirt, Mohamed Bakkali is accused of having been the "driver" of Ayoub El Khazzani, the Thalys shooter, and Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the coordinator of the November 13 attacks.

In August 2015, the two men left Syria following the Balkan route.

They were helped by a mysterious driver who escorted them to Brussels - one from Hungary, the other from Germany.

"I was not looking for them," assures this 33-year-old Belgian who is determined, this Friday, to dismantle this dossier which he knows in great detail.

If he has been on trial for several weeks alongside Ayoub El Khazzani and three other men, it is only because justice had it "on hand".

“I was charged in the dossier of the November 13 attacks, and they came to get me two years later.

I was involved in this case on the basis of tiny elements, ”he sums up very well.

He is indeed accused of having rented a car and apartments from members of the terrorist cell which struck Paris and then Brussels a few months later.

But he stresses, with great confidence, that the evidence implicating him in the Thalys attack is thin.

Chances, coincidences at most.

But nothing that does not question him firmly.

Even his co-defendants have assured that they do not recognize him as the famous driver that everyone seeks to formally identify.

“I've been accused for three years for something I haven't done, it's normal that I'm passionate about it!

"

"Your telephone line at the time is at the same place as the line we are going to call the driver line", begins the president.

"The Belgian police are amateurs," replied the accused, pointing out point by point the gaps in the investigation concerning telephony.

"There are things that are abnormal," regrets the magistrate, ensuring that the accusation "does not rely exclusively" on the telephone.

" Yes !

Bakkali retorts immediately.

It is, in any case, the only material element of the file linking it directly to the attack.

For the rest, he basically explains that he was there in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“At no time did I have terrorist intent in what I did.

He was dating the brothers Ibrahim and Khalid El Bakraoui, who blew themselves up in Brussels in March 2016. One was his "partner" in a counterfeit business, the other played with him on the Playstation.

In retrospect, he believes that he "didn't know them well" because he "strongly condemns" "what they did."

He concedes that he learned about Daesh years ago and what was going on in Syria, because everyone was talking about it.

“But that didn't bother me.

"In one of the computers which were seized from his father, in Verviers, were found" photos of Osama bin Laden, jihadist songs, jihadist propaganda, "recalls the president.

Mohamed Bakkali cuts it off: all these files only represent 0.2% of the contents of the folder in which they were found (he did the math).

“Even if it was four times more, it wouldn't even be 1%!

And there was also a photo of Pope Benedict XVI, he points out.

- We do not say that it is your only interest, but you had an attraction for these subjects.


-At 0.2%.

There is also this micro SD card, found at his wife's, continues the president.

The videos it contained showed the director general of the Belgian nuclear energy study center who had been secretly monitored and filmed by a camera placed in a thicket in front of his home.

Again, he has an explanation.

Khalid El Bakraoui, who blew himself up in a train in the Brussels metro, gave him a camera so that he could sell it at a flea market.

He had retrieved the card and "put it aside" thinking it was empty.

“Of course, it's more curious, admits the accused.

I would be in your place, I would say it's suspicious, I understand of course.

But I can't give more explanation.

"

Curious, just like those conversations found on a computer after the Brussels attacks.

Ibrahim El Bakraoui, who blew himself up at the airport, and another jihadist discuss a plan to get Mohamed Bakkali and Mehdi Nemmouche out of prison, the perpetrator of the Brussels Jewish Museum attack in 2014. They could "kidnap one or two heads and ask in return for the release of certain brothers", "in priority" those who "worked".

"We do not organize a rescue operation for the 5th, the 20th, the 30th wheel of the carriage, it's curious," observes President Zientara.

Bakkali kicks in touch.

It was the turn of one of the two advocates general to question him.

"You know this file as well as us, if not better", he launches to the accused whom he describes as "extremely intelligent".

The accused raises his voice.

“Don't tell me I'm extremely intelligent, the psychiatric experts said I was average,” he explains.

Before concluding: "I have nothing to do with this story and it is normal that I defend myself in a virulent way and that I study my file".

The verdict is due on December 17.

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  • Terrorism

  • Justice

  • Ibrahim El Bakraoui

  • Khalid El Bakraoui

  • Attacks in Brussels

  • Attack on a Thalys

  • Abdelhamid Abaaoud

  • Ayoub El Khazzani

  • Thalys

  • Trial

  • Society