EXCLUSIVE
The facts take place a year ago, today. On March 5, 2019, at the high security prison of Condé-sur-Sarthe, two prison guards were injured by a radicalized prisoner and his partner, who died in the Raid assault. Mute for many months, Michaël Chiolo, the author of the attack, finally spoke on January 16 during his last hearing before the judges, whose minutes Europe 1 was able to consult exclusively. And the detainee claims his actions without the least state of mind.
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Faced with the judges, Michaël Chiolo, indicted for the association of criminal criminal criminals and attempted assassination on a person holding public authority, only answers the questions of his interlocutors, having dismissed his lawyer. Returning to the facts, he assumes everything without detour. "I will not say that I regret while I do not regret," he dismisses.
"Did you intend to kill?" Asked the judges. "Exactly yes," he replied, also saying that he wanted to attack the director of the prison.
He wanted to "avenge" Chérif Chekatt, the Strasbourg terrorist
Michaël Chiolo, who says he started to "take an interest in religion" and be "rigorous in practice" since 2016-2017, explains that he decided to take action to "avenge" a former fellow prisoner, Chérif Chekatt, the author of the Strasbourg attack, which he describes as a "brother". "When he committed his act, I said to myself 'now is the time'," he said again.
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On the other hand, despite eavesdropping on prison information that suggests the opposite, the 29-year-old refutes any complicity with his fellow prisoners, claiming that he only spoke to his partner, with whom he had even trained during previous visiting rooms. A year ago, she was the one who brought four ceramic knives and sulfuric acid into the prison, hidden under her full veil. "The sulfuric acid was a plus, if the reinforcements had arrived sooner," added the suspect, who also said that he had made a fake explosive belt from sheets and plasticine.
"I consider that I have done a right thing"
The two accomplices then attracted the two supervisors to the small apartment where they were allowed to share family time. "I aimed at the vital points", says today the thirty-something initially condemned for robbery, who explains without blinking: "the only thing I had not foreseen is that the knives break". To the judges, the radicalized prisoner explained that originally, "the goal was to kill one and keep the other to make the exchange with the director". And to assure: "If it were to be done again, I would do the exact same thing with more hatred, more violence, because I consider to have done a right thing by obeying the law of Allah and not the law of men".