Jean-Baptiste Marty // Photo credit: Benoit PEYRUCQ / AFP 08:01, September 26, 2023

Seven years ago, Jean-Baptiste Salvaing and Jessica Schneider, both police officers, were coldly murdered at their home in Magnanville in the Yvelines by a jihadist then shot by the RAID. The first day of the trial before the Assize Court of an alleged accomplice took place on Monday. The accused maintains his innocence.

On June 13, 2016, the terrorist Larosi Abballi entered the pavilion of two police officers in Magnanville in the Yvelines to murder Jean-Baptiste Salvaing and Jessica Schneider, two police officers. This Monday began the trial of an alleged accomplice, Mohamed Lamine Aberouz, suspected of also being on the scene at the time of the act.

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First meeting

In the Voltaire room of the Palais de Justice in Paris, face to face, the families of the two policemen killed and Mohamed Lamine Aberouz observe each other for the first time. Looking at the accused, Jean-Paul Salvaing, Jean-Baptiste's father, wants to understand why his son was murdered.

Thibault de Montbrial, lawyer for Jessica Schneider's family, sets the tone for this first day of hearing: "We have an accused who is a notorious Islamist, proven, already convicted in a case of Islamist terrorism who comes to plead against the case, an acquittal, of which I will do everything so that he does not have it," he said.

Alleged accused maintains innocence

Later that day, beard necklace and glasses fixed on his nose, the alleged 30-year-old defendant speaks out and to everyone's surprise, says he supports the families of the two victims. He is determined to prove that he was not with the assailant on the night of the attack. For his lawyer Vincent Brengarth, his client is in "a state of mind that is twofold. He is determined both to be able to prove his innocence and the fact that he has absolutely nothing to do with the facts of which he is accused. And at the same time, he is also realistic about the difficulty that there may be to assert his position before anti-terrorist courts and to be able to be heard, "he explains at the microphone of Europe 1.

To preserve him from the debates, the child of the couple of dead policemen is absent. The trial resumes this Tuesday morning with the interrogation of the personality of the accused.