Since September 8, 2021 the trial of the attacks of November 13, has been held in Paris.David Fritz Goeppinger, victim of these attacks is today a photographer and author.He agreed to share via this on -board journal his feelings, in pictures and in writing, during the long months that this river trial last, which started on Wednesday September 8, 2021 before the Special Assize Court of Paris.Here is his story of the seventeenth week.
>> Le journal de la seizième semaine
Tower
Friday January 28.Fridays are different from other days.The impatience that the day begins to accumulate as the trial is temporarily stopped.If I can't wait for him to resume, I remain relieved to have these few moments of breathing, this time for me.Coming back yesterday, I meet, on the display of a newsagent, the work published by Charlie Hebdo compiling the first four months of the hearing of the trial of the attacks of November 13, 2015.I photograph him and smile at the idea that I barely leave the sanctuary to meet a piece later.
The audience today concerns Mohammed Amri, the man who came to seek Salah Abdeslam after the attacks of November 13 in order to repatriate him to Belgium.The first witness is his father, who like most of the parents already heard are not very talkative and seem not to really understand the questions of the parties.The two witnesses interviewed deposit in videoconferencing from the office of the Belgian federal prosecution.This is an opportunity to find the large inverted U table and the unknown people who sneak there.As I write these words, the second witness, the wife of the accused, is questioned by the president.Under the questions of the person concerned, she will go so far as to mention the day in November 13.On his return from France, the accused told his wife going to get a friend, without specifying where.The discussion between the president and the witness continues and the fluidity of the debates surprises me, especially compared to the previous one.The witness brings a lot of details on the personality of her husband and does not seem to want to conceal fragments of her behavior: “Mohammed is very introverted, very modest, not at all leader, rather follower, even at home.(...) He is extremely nice, too good.""In 2015, the accused worked at the Samu Social but alternated with concealed work in a place bringing together most Belgian actors in the attacks: the café des Beguines whose Abdeslam brothers were responsible.This cafe, located in Molenbeek, becomes a real crossroads of a large part of the accused present in the box and outside, and we do not stop hearing about it since September.
Although the debates continue, I will unfortunately have to leave the palace for today.
See you on Tuesday.
The nave
Thursday January 27.I look at the three retransmission screens that sit in place of the courtyard in the auction room.The diffuse noise of the projector creates a particular atmosphere in the large wooded room.On the screen, lawyers discuss each other while civil parties arrive.In my mind, a silence sets in as I observe the accused chatting between them.What do they say?The courtroom seems distant from here, however thanks to these screens, I cannot be closer to the nave: the courtroom.
I find Gwendal in the lost room to drink a coffee while the audience has just resumed.We exchange our frustration about the trial, I am relieved to discover that I am not the only one to share this feeling.At the helm, Raphaële Cade, director of penitentiary services and head of the QER of Fleury-Mérogis. Les quartiers d'évaluation de la radicalisation(QER) ont été créés en 2016 après les attentats qui ont frappé la France en 2015 et ont pris la suite des unités de prévention de la radicalisation(Upra) au sein des prisons françaises.This device allows penitentiary establishments to assess, follow and somehow adapting the pain of the radicalized detainee.The director explains an account of the behavior of Muhammad Usman, interviewed two days ago.His intervention is very interesting and rich, we discover some details on his journey and his way of thinking.The detention center had set up a prevention program for violent radicalization but ""during his visit to the Qer he was not in a violent attitude, he was in peace.He was quite constant and not in the concealment.""And to continue, indicating that the accused expressed regrets and that he was perceived by the evaluation district as"" an influencing person but who wanted to change.""Since it was the lawyers of the accused who cited the witness, they are the ones who open the ball of the courts after the courtyard.We learn in particular that Muhammad Usman asked to extend his stay at QER.In addition, we learned at the start of the hearing that Madame Cade will be the only witness who will move at the helm about this accused.
The turn of the lawyers of the civil parties.Master Maktouf asks the first question: “Madam, I wonder if you are not prey to the taqîya* of Mr. Usman? '' Female answer from the director:“ To be a prey, I am notsure of being in this position.”The lawyer of civil party evokes letters found in the accused's cell before entering the evaluation district, letters in which he refers to the jihad, and continues by asking him if the evaluation would have been different if theQer had been aware of the existence of such parts.The director nuances her words: “The vision of the Qer is not the vision of a person but they are crossed views.This would have made it possible to assess things starting from these elements.""General lawyer, Camille Hennetier, returns to the role of QER in the life of an inmate.If I understand correctly, it is a kind of airlock through which the prisoner passes to orient him towards a district of isolation, ordinary detention or in the district of taking charge of radicalization.All the parties question the witness on the report concerning Muhammad Usman made by the evaluation district of radicalization and do not seem convinced by it: “How did you happen to think that he was not radicalized? "","" What could have made you believe that he was not kissing a radical ideology? ""
Great way to start the year with a publication in the world psychiatry newspaper!“How to assess patient satisfaction… https: // t.CO/2SBDHH4BHL
— Social Psychiatry Wed Jan 09 10:18:42 +0000 2019
During the suspension, I take my two acolytes Bruno and Gwendal in search of a photograph in the meanders of the palace.Bruno indicates the pile of documents behind a window in the large and bright René-Parodi vestibule.This pile of forgotten documents reminds me of the density of the V13 file and the heaviness that we cross.
When the debates resumes, the president questions the parties about the absence of Mrs. Grégoire, Belgian magistrate.I said last November that defense lawyers and civil parties could find agreements and we are there again.The importance of the testimony of this witness is essential for the manifestation of the truth but I have the feeling that it enters the line of Belgian investigators in November.His absence goes wrong, for everyone.Maître Vial, Defense lawyer: “Madame Grégoire is essential.She investigated a file which recognizes judicially that there has been a concealment of one of the terrorists involved in the Brussels attacks in his radicalization.”But Maître Eskenazi, also a defense lawyer, created the nuance.He says he understands the decision of the Belgian magistrate but adds: ""From the start, the Belgian and French prosecutor's office have not understood that it was a single trial, one and the same story.""
Le témoin suivant est un cousin de Yassine Atar(accusé présent dans le box) et connaît deux autres accusés : Mohamed Bakkali et Ali El Haddad Asufi.And it is the cousin of two terrorists involved in the Brussels attacks in March 2016.Known very unfavorably with Belgian justice, the man tells the relationship he had with his cousins.The President nevertheless points to inconsistencies in his current testimony and that reraded in a report drawn up during his imprisonment.I have the impression that the testimony of the witness turns into an interrogation in good and due forms by the president and the courtyard.
I decide to stop writing for today, the hearing of the witness continues.
Until tomorrow. *Le mot taqîya, parfois orthographié taqiyya ou takia, provient de l'arabe تقيّة(taqīyya) qui signifie ""prudence"" et ""crainte"".This term designates, within Islam, a precautionary practice consisting, under stress, of concealing or denying its faith in order to avoid persecution.
Come back to silence
Wednesday January 26.As often, questions follow my steps while I cross the new bridge and I am seriously starting to wonder if, when we arrive at the facts, some accused will be expressed at all.As a civil party, victim - and I already said it - it was difficult at the start of visualizing what my expectations of the trial were.But there are still days when the hearing continues to disappoint me and, to hear the first exchanges between the accused and the president, today's audience is no exception to what has become a rule.
After the summons of uses concerning the great absent of the box since the end of November, the hearing resumes and the president has a development on the schedule, announcing the absence of witnesses over the next two days, including a Belgian magistrate involvedin the investigation of the accused interviewed today. La magistrate justifie son absence et dit “réserver la primeur de son témoignage aux magistrats belges dans le procès des attentats de Bruxelles(...) "The man interviewed today is considered one of the logisticians of the attacks of November 13 but, unlike some of the men present in the box, he never went to Syria.He is also known in the investigation of another attack, that of the Thalys, on August 21, 2015, trial in which he received 25 years in prison.The president asks him to get up and starts the usual introduction before interrogation when the man in the box cuts him to ask him to express himself.The accused explains that he will not answer questions because he considers that his word will always be considered suspect.He adds: "This beginning of the trial was difficult to live, already because I still hadn't cashed the other.(...) Everything is considered cunning, me since the start of the trial, we do not see what I live behind ... I am no longer in the possibility of doing it, I did it once, I fought myself."The president insists that he answers questions but the accused does not give in.
Even if the trial continues I feel like I am backtracking and relive the sixty eighth day of the trial, two weeks ago, when another accused exercised his right to remain silent.The president begins to read the hearing minutes and there too, the same remarks as before-"There, we would have liked to have answers"-in a sigh supported by a disappointed and disappointed look over his glassesrectangular.Nicolas Braconnay, one of the three lawyers general, begins to read the questions he had planned and evokes a "somewhat vain exercise".
The declaration of Maître Chemla, lawyer for civil parties, calls out to me and echoes my anger.He wishes to "come back to this silence" and quotes the accused: "For you justice has no ear, no listening."The accused, in the box, does not cille and barely looks at the big lawyer and his black dress. “Les gens qui sont venus déposer ont été attaqués par des gens qui faisaient partie d’un groupe, dont vous étiez proche(...) and we can think that if you were upset by that, we can imagine that you should have at least accounts to give them.”It may be there, the origin of my anger, the fact that despite the exceptional justice apparatus set up for the trial, despite the size of the courtroom, the place of history that welcomes thishistorical trial, nothing seems to be able to convince the accused to collaborate.
I would like to tell the accused that if they believe that justice has no ears, we, civil parties, have and we listen to the words they pronounce at every moment and with attention, not to judge neitherattack, but to understand.Understand what we have experienced and continue to live.We are neither judges, magistrates nor lawyers, only dazzled people in front of the rays of light of justice that we do not understand all the time but that we hear.Far be it from me to understand how people were able to find themselves involved at this point in events like those in November 13, but what does we have left to try to glimpse events?After the trial, will we have the chance to look again, collectively and in a judicial way, on that dark night?The five weeks of depositions of the civil parties are only a fragment, however so intense, of all the pain that we felt on the 13th and as yesterday, I sadly the impression that the trial sometimes became the echoby the frustration and anger that he generates.Maître Chemla concludes in the direction of the accused and advises him to answer questions "as a courageous man who faces his destiny and that of the people whose existence he destroyed".
After observations of Maître Kempf, defense lawyer, the president begins to read the hearing of witnesses absent from the hearing and announces a suspension
I barely have time to swallow a speed in speed and the hearing resumes.The accused's brother is at the helm, a light gray jacket and a blue mask on the face.He describes his brother as calm, intelligent and “too empathetic”.And to continue: "He got carried away by people, he trusted too easily."As often, the elements presented by relatives witness to a personality or a piece of identity more lively than the accused himself, a sort of painting that could appear more complete.The first assessor's turn, Frédérique Aline, to ask her questions.The magistrate continues, increases the rhythm of the audience and the man tries to answer.After a while, I hear him say, "I can say something, it's personal, huh?"And to continue by abundant in the sense of the declarations of his brother, at the start of the day: "I have the impression that we are prejudice, whatever we say."To the questions of the Court and one of the lawyers general, the man seems to respond readily but sometimes underlines his misunderstanding in the face of the insistence of the actors of the trial on certain points.The questions continue and the witness readily answers while I closed the ticket of the day.Civil parties' lawyers start their questions and interrogation is difficult to follow.
I leave the auction room to finalize the writing in the room of lost steps.Around me, lawyers discuss on the phone, their voices mingle with the background noise of the palace.Behind the stained glass, night falls in Paris.
Until tomorrow.
