The jihadist Inès Madani, sentenced for having tried to blow up a car near Notre-Dame in September 2016, is retried on appeal from Tuesday, May 25, before the special assize court in Paris.

The young woman, now 24, was sentenced at first instance, in October 2019, to thirty years of criminal imprisonment, a sentence she appealed.  

"It is a sentence unsuited to the personality" of Inès Madani, who since the facts "has changed a lot," said one of his lawyers, Tewfik Bouzenoune.

Considered to be the brain of a "commando" of women who wanted to launch terrorist attacks following the instructions of Rachid Kassim, propagandist of the Islamic State (IS) group, she was retried without the other members of the group, who did not have appealed and whose convictions are therefore final.

One of them, Ornella Gilligmann, will however be heard as a witness.

She was sentenced to 25 years in prison for having tried, with Inès Madani, to detonate a car filled with gas canisters on the night of September 3 to 4, 2016, in front of restaurants near Notre-Dame.

During the first trial, the two women were blamed for the attack, which was aborted due to a poor choice of fuel - diesel, which is difficult to ignite.

Inès Madani faces life imprisonment

After the failure of this attack, Inès Madani had found refuge, on the advice of Rachid Kassim, in an apartment in Boussy-Saint-Antoine (Essonne).

She was arrested in a parking lot on September 8, 2016, as she walked, kitchen knife in hand, towards a police officer, who shot her four times and injured her legs.

Also retried for attempted murder of a person holding public authority and for criminal terrorist association, Inès Madani faces life imprisonment.

In another case, the young woman was sentenced in April 2019 by the Paris Criminal Court to eight years' imprisonment for having incited jihad candidates to join Syria or to commit attacks in France and Belgium. , between March 2015 and June 2016.

She interacted with these jihadist apprentices by hiding under the names of male IS fighters, such as Abu Junayd or Abu Souleyman.

It was under this pseudonym that she had enlisted Ornella Gilligmann on the internet.

Only the one who was to become her husband, Mohamed Lamine Aberouz, sentenced at first instance to three years' imprisonment, will appear alongside Inès Madani.

He is retried for not denouncing a terrorist crime.

With AFP

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