The trial of jihadist Kevin Guiavarch opened on Monday before the special assize court in Paris.

The 29-year-old man is on trial for terrorist criminal association alongside his wife and three co-wives.

According to the prosecution, the jihadist, who became Abu Ayoub, was a "combatant" within Daesh.

Many shots show him in combat gear and in possession of weapons of war.

But the interested party disputes this version, claiming to have played "role play" with Daesh and affirming that he was thinking of deserting its ranks in 2014 but that he had remained in the area "out of resignation".

“I went to Syria to help the population,” explained Kevin Guiavarch, stressing that he had first fought in the ranks of the Free Syrian Army (ASL) before his group joined Daesh.

"Traumatized" by the death in combat of one of his comrades, the one who claims to be repentant today claims to have never ceased to leave Syria with his family.

After three unsuccessful attempts, Guiavarch and his large family managed to enter Turkey on foot on June 6, 2016. Quickly arrested, they were handed over to France in October and November 2016.

Four wives, including one pregnant and a fifth wife

During the hearing, Kevin Guiavarch shares the accused's box with Sahra R., 27, one of his ex-wives, visibly several months pregnant.

A request for provisional release from Sahra R. was to be examined in the afternoon by the investigating chamber.

All the other defendants appear free, under judicial control.

In addition to Kevin Guiavarch and his four "wives", a fifth woman, Camélia M., is on trial alongside them for "terrorist business financing".

She is accused of having sought to facilitate the departure to Syria of a radicalized minor, originally from Troyes, who should have married Kevin Guiavarch once in Syria.

The offense of criminal terrorist association is punishable by 30 years of imprisonment but, because of the date of the facts alleged against the defendants they risk 20 years of imprisonment.

Camélia M. faces 10 years in prison.

The journey of Kevin Guiavarch

Coming from a Christian family, he converted to Islam at the age of 13 and would have become radicalized when his family moved to Grenoble from 2009. He is an activist in the ranks of the Islamist group radical Forsane Alizza ("The Horsemen of Pride", now dissolved) who advocates armed jihad and wishes to establish a caliphate in France.

After a first marriage and the birth of a first child, he married in April 2012, Salma O., twelve years his senior, also an activist at Forsane Alizza.

The couple joined Syria at the end of 2012. Settled in an area controlled by Daesh, the young man found himself fairly quickly at the head of a household of four wives with whom he would have six children.

Besides Salma O., Kevin Guiavarch married Parveen L. (born in 1994), then Sally D. (1990) and finally Sahra R. (1994), all from France and recruited from Syria via a Facebook account.

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  • Daesh

  • Jihadism

  • Forsane Alizza

  • Justice

  • Trial

  • Terrorism

  • Syria

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