• Inès Madani, 24, is tried from Tuesday before the Special Assize Court of Appeal for trying to blow up a car near Notre-Dame.

  • At first instance, she escaped life imprisonment and received a 30-year prison sentence.

    One of his co-defendants, Mohamed Aberouz, was sentenced to 3 years in prison.

    He also appealed.

  • The verdict is expected on June 7.

A risky call. On September 14, 2019, Inès Madani, now 24 years old, was sentenced to 30 years in prison, without a security period, for trying to blow up a car near Notre-Dame in September 2016. The magistrates of the special assize court had followed the requisitions of the advocates general, who had not requested life imprisonment against him because of his "age at the time of the facts". A chance for this young woman already sentenced to eight years in prison in another terrorist case. Hoping nevertheless to obtain a less severe sentence, she decided to appeal this decision "which takes into account neither the reality of the facts, nor the youth of the accused", explained her lawyer, Me Laurent Pasquet-Marinacce.

His trial before the Special Assize Court of Appeal opens on Tuesday. The magistrates will try once again to identify the profile of Inès Madani who, in 2016, passed himself off on the Internet as “Abu Omar”, a jihadist who returned from Syria to carry out an attack in France. Taking advantage of this aura of a veteran at the time, the radicalized young woman comes into contact with other aspiring terrorists, whom she encourages to take action.

Some women with whom she talks were even "seduced" by Abu Omar and fell "in love", the Advocate General recalled at the hearing.

With one of them, Ornella Gilligmann, Inès Madani will try to explode a car filled with gas canisters near Notre-Dame de Paris.

During the night of September 3 to 4, 2016, she tried to set the vehicle on fire with diesel.

Only the choice of this fuel, difficult to ignite, made it possible to avoid the explosion.

DGSI agent stabbed

After this failure, Inès Madani took refuge in Amel Sakaou's apartment, in Boussy-Saint-Antoine (Essonne), on the advice of Rachid Kassim, Daesh propagandist and inspirer, a few weeks earlier, of the assassination of 'a policeman and his wife in Magnanville (Yvelines). They are joined by Sarah Hervouët, a very radicalized young woman from the south of France, who was also guided by the jihadist. On September 8, knowing the police were on their heels, the three young women hurriedly left their apartment, armed with kitchen knives. In a parking lot, Sarah Hervouët stabs a DGSI agent who was watching them in the shoulder.

For her part, Inès Madani runs towards a policeman, a knife in his hand.

Feeling threatened, the agent opened fire on her four times.

Hit in the foot and thigh, she still tries to take on the officials around her.

Mother of three children, Ornella Gilligmann was sentenced to 25 years in prison, and Sarah Hervouët to 20 years.

Mohamed Aberouz, who was to marry Sarah Hervouët and was tried for "not denouncing a crime", received a three-year prison sentence.

With Inès Madani, he is the only one of the eight people tried at first instance to have appealed.

The verdict is expected on June 7.

Justice

Attack foiled in front of Notre-Dame de Paris: "A commando" of women in the assizes

Justice

Failed Notre-Dame attack: The two main defendants sentenced to 25 and 30 years' imprisonment

  • Terrorism

  • Paris

  • Trial

  • Justice

  • Jihadism

  • Attack

  • Notre Dame of Paris