On April 20, 2017, a man shoots a Kalashnikov at a police bus parked on the avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris.
Xavier Jugelé, a 37-year-old policeman, is killed.
Two of his colleagues and a German tourist are injured.
Four years later, Monday, June 7, opens in Paris, before a special assize court composed only of professional magistrates, the trial of four men, suspected of being complicit in this attack.
In the absence of the assailant Karim Cheurfi, shot twice after having killed Xavier Jugelé, only one of the four men is judged under the qualification of terrorist.
Nourredine Allam, aged 31, is being prosecuted for criminal conspiracy to prepare a crime, suspected of having sold Karim Cheurfi the assault rifle with which Xavier Jugelé was killed, three days before first round of the presidential election.
The other three defendants are on trial for possession and / or transfer of weapons.
Only one appears free.
The accused denies en bloc
On Monday, Nourredine Allam offered his condolences to the family and relatives of the police officer.
Clean shaven, short hair, wearing a dark jacket over a gray T-shirt, he then maintained in court what he had defended during the investigation.
"I have nothing to do with this sale of arms, neither near nor far," declared Nourredine Allam, previously sentenced 19 times between 2004 and 2013, sometimes to prison, for crimes common law.
Two of the other defendants claimed during the investigation that he had indeed sold the assault rifle to Karim Cheurfi.
In addition, Nourredine Allam would have said the day after the attack to his cousin, according to the latter, "to have made a 'huge blunder'".
His lawyer, Me Clarisse Serre, also rejected, Monday, in front of the press, the terrorist qualification, stressing that the profile of his client had "nothing to do" with that of a radical Islamist.
She also highlighted the responsibility of the authorities who let Karim Cheurfi free after police custody at the end of February 2017 (two months before the attack), as part of a preliminary investigation opened by the Meaux prosecutor's office for "criminal association with a view to committing a crime".
"The authorities knew, a month and a half before the attack, his plan to assassinate the police. If the hearing is well conducted, we will quickly realize the mistakes in this affair. The drama of the Champs-Élysées would have could be avoided ", maintained Me Serre.
This investigation followed two reports made at the end of 2016 to the Marseille and Montfermeil (Seinte-Saint-Denis) police stations about the behavior and comments of Karim Cheurfi.
Already sentenced in 2005 to 15 years in prison for attempted assassinations of persons holding public authority, "his hatred of the police" was notorious, recalled the president of the court, Laurent Raviot.
Three days before the presidential election
03:15
Three days before the first round of the 2017 presidential election, the attack, immediately claimed by the jihadist group Islamic State (IS), had hardened the end of the campaign while France had suffered in 2015 and 2016 an unprecedented wave of attacks.
A national tribute was paid to Xavier Jugelé, posthumously elevated to the rank of captain and knight of the Legion of Honor.
In addition, François Hollande, then President of the Republic, and the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, went to the posthumous wedding, the following month, of Xavier Jugelé with his companion, invited to the Elysee during the entrance according to Emmanuel Macron.
On the eve of the opening of the trial, Jean-Luc Mélenchon cited the case of Xavier Jugelé among others before predicting "a serious incident or a murder" in the "last week of the presidential campaign", creating controversy .
"It was Merah in 2012 (jihadist author of the killings in Toulouse and Montauban, especially in a Jewish school, Editor's note), it was the attack last week on the Champs-Élysées, before we had Papy Voise (Paul Voise, a retiree assaulted at his home in Orleans in April 2002), whom no one has ever heard of after. All that is written in advance, "said the leader of rebellious France.
With AFP
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