• Two radicalized men of 39 and 41 years old are tried from this Tuesday before the special assize court in Paris.

  • Arrested in September 2017, they are accused of having manufactured explosives in an apartment in Villejuif (Val-de-Marne) in order to commit an attack whose outlines remain unclear. 

  • The verdict is expected Friday.

    They face life imprisonment. 

A small water leak which undoubtedly made it possible to avoid a big carnage. On September 7, 2017, around 10 a.m., two plumbers worked in a building located on Boulevard Chastenet de Gery, in Villejuif (Val-de-Marne) at the request of the trustee. On the terrace of a studio, on the third floor of the building, they notice a blue tarpaulin under which are stored many bottles containing toxic products. On a camping table are placed a salad bowl containing a whitish paste, a scale and leaves containing inscriptions in Arabic. Inside the apartment, empty of its occupants, they can distinguish electrical components. Intrigued by this discovery, they alert the police.

For the former public prosecutor of Paris, François Molins, their sagacity "allowed the police services to foil the plans of those who were obviously preparing to commit another violent action on our territory".

The owner of the apartment, Ali MR, 36, was arrested at the beginning of the afternoon by the Bac.

The investigation quickly reveals that this Franco-Algerian maintains numerous telephone contacts with Frédéric L., an individual named S because of his membership in the radical Islamist movement.

The latter was arrested during the night of September 7 to 8, 2017 at his home.

More than three years after the facts, the two men are tried from this Tuesday in Paris before the special assize court.

"Take revenge on the coalition"

In police custody, they admitted that "their project was the construction of a bomb to commit an attack," François Molins had indicated during a press conference. They planned to produce ten kilos of TATP, an explosive popular with jihadists, in order to “take revenge on the international coalition” which was attacking Daesh in Syria and Iraq. "No project was established at this stage, even if one of them admitted that they had thought of attacking soldiers of Operation Sentinel", had indicated the magistrate who was, at the time, the public face of anti-terrorism. The two men had started making explosives, which they tested by filming themselves with a GoPro on the apartment terrace.

During the search of the premises, investigators from the anti-terrorism section of the criminal brigade found around one hundred grams of TATP, bottles of sulfuric acid, hydrochloric acid, hydrogen peroxide and acetone, as well as an alarm clock cobbled together with electric wires.

Other bottles of the same substances were found later in a box rented in Thiais by Ali MR.

The two men, who were until then unknown to justice, probably had the idea to take action after failing to go to Syria to fight within Daesh, in 2015. Converted since 2008, Frédéric L. was even in contact with Rachid Kassim, an infamous French propagandist of the Islamic State whose shadow hangs over many terrorist files.

The verdict is expected Friday June 11.

Both defendants face life imprisonment.

Paris

VIDEO.

Villejuif: Ready-to-use TATP explosive discovered in a clandestine laboratory

Society

Explosives laboratory in Villejuif: The two suspects wanted to carry out an attack

  • Justice

  • Daesh

  • Rachid Kassim

  • Explosive

  • Villejuif

  • Attack

  • Trial

  • Terrorism