The trial of the Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray attack opened on Monday before the specially composed Assize Court.
Three men are on trial for "terrorist criminal association".
After Guy Coponet this Thursday morning, Roseline Hamel, Father Hamel's sister, came to testify before the Assize Court.
She was at his house on the day of the attack for a holiday.
She delivered a message of peace and love.
At the specially composed court of assizes in Paris,
She politely declines the chair offered to her by the president.
At the age of 80, Roseline Hamel prefers to stand up in front of the Assize Court specially composed to evoke her brother, Father Jacques, assassinated on July 26, 2016 in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray.
Telling the man of the Church, of course, a vocation born from an early age despite a father not really practicing, but also the one that in the family everyone had ended up calling "uncle".
Him, the "silent" who "devoted his life to others", the "simple" man who would not have approved that his funeral be celebrated in the cathedral of Rouen.
"What is strange is that he who was so discreet was brought to light in the four corners of the world on the day of his martyrdom", insists the octogenarian, black jacket, curly white hair.
On the day of the attack, chance of the calendar, Roseline Hamel who lived several hundred kilometers away, was in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray with one of her daughters, her granddaughter and great-grandchildren.
The whole family had arrived the day before and was to leave the next day with Father Jacques for a few days of vacation in the Dordogne.
The priest simply had to celebrate Mass on Tuesday morning.
"While we, unconscious, were under the duvet, he was being martyred," says the victim's sister, her hands placed flat on the desk.
And to tell the evening of the day before when, during dinner, the conversation had revolved around the attack in Nice, perpetrated a few days earlier.
" What can we do ?
“, had questioned Roseline Hamel.
" He answered me,
we can only pray but the politicians should quickly get to work because it's not over, without knowing that the next day it would be his turn.
»
“Can you certify the rumor for me?
»
It's a phone call that turns this day into horror.
A man is trying to inquire about a "rumor that goes around": there is currently a hostage-taking in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray.
“If it's a joke, it's in bad taste,” retorts Roseline Hamel.
From that moment, however, his “stomach begins to make knots”.
Accompanied by her daughter, she decides to go “to look for Jacques at the church”.
The building is only 300 meters from the presbytery but on the road, they meet dozens of "soldiers" with "submachine guns".
While they want to continue on their way, one of them asks them to take shelter in the nearest store.
“Bad omen, it was the funeral home,” recalls the octogenarian without blinking.
After two hours spent in uncertainty,
the news falls.
"I received this announcement like a cannonball, I screamed to tear my lungs out," she recalls, sobs choking in her throat.
Despite her pain, Roseline Hamel assures her: "you will not have my hatred", a phrase borrowed from Antoine Leiris, whose wife was murdered at the Bataclan.
Facing the box, she speaks directly to the three defendants.
“Even with my great lingering pain, you will not have my hatred,” she insists.
She has never felt any, the “suffering was so immense that there was no room for hatred”.
Following in the footsteps of his brother, the octogenarian has forged links with the mother of Adel Kermiche, one of the two assailants.
An approach that follows a question, which loops: “If I was the mother whose son had committed this act, terrifying, barbaric, what would have been my suffering?
»
"You fell into each other's arms"
Their first meeting, a few months after the attack, is the Archbishop of Rouen, Monsignor Lebrun who tells it, in tears at the bar.
“You fell into each other's arms, in silence.
Me, I was like a puppet next to it.
And that silence lasted forever,” he recalls.
Then, turning to Roseline Hamel, he reminds her of that sentence she had with regard to the terrorist's mother.
“I lost my brother in terrible circumstances, he was my brother and he was old, but you lost your son and he was young.
» Moved by the testimony of Roselyne Hamel, Farid Khelil, one of the three defendants, cousin of one of the assailants, asks to speak, as he had done, a few hours earlier, facing Guy Coponet , seriously injured in the attack.
"I find it admirable, what you said: 'They won't have your hatred.'
Know that you have my love.
If I could have done more, believe me I would have done more.
I blame myself every day for this criminal negligence.
Roseline Hamel approaches the box, looks him in the eye.
If she doubts her sincerity, she “admits that these words” do her a lot of good.
“I fully understand your reservations, I accept them,” replies Farid Khelil politely.
Justice
Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray attack: “If you move, he will finish you!
» The poignant story of Guy Coponet, survivor of the attack
Justice
Attack of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray: At the trial of the assassination of Father Hamel, the costume "too heavy to wear" of an accused
Seine Maritime
Rouen
Terrorism
Trial
attack
Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray
Justice
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