At the trial of the November 13 attacks, Farid Kharkhach’s lawyers demanded an acquittal for the charge of terrorist criminal association against the Belgian-Moroccan, accused of having served as an intermediary in the supply of false documents identity to the terrorist cell.
From our special envoys to the Paris courthouse,
The Advocates General themselves called it in their requisitions of ” patch “. It is true that in the plexiglass box, Farid Kharkhach stands out. The 39-year-old Belgian-Moroccan is the only one who does not know any of his co-defendants. And reciprocally. The man also stands out for his attitude. The one who presented himself at the start of the trial as a “fish” suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder, showed his extreme sensitivity on several occasions during these ten months of hearing. ” A character apart “, estimated the QER (districts for the evaluation of radicalization) in its report.
The National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office denounced his ” cowardice ” and his ” greed for having acted as an intermediary in the supply of four false identity cards out of the fourteen used by the terrorist cell to allow the commandos of November 13 to cross Europe from Syria, and to rent hideouts. But for his lawyers, Farid Kharkhach cannot be reduced to these two terms alone. On the contrary, his personality deserves attention. Because it partly justifies its presence in the box and the leniency that the judges will have to show when delivering their verdict on June 29.
” A man who is scared of everything »
” It is essential to know who we have in front of us to judge it begins Me Marie Lefrancq in a soft voice, like the man she is about to portray. At the time of the facts with which he is charged, Farid Kharkhach is first and foremost a father, she recalls in front of a largely sparse room. A ” sugar daddy “, a courageous man, who does odd jobs because he does not want to depend on social assistance, but who has no money problems. A man who deeply loves his host country, Belgium, to which he feels deep gratitude for having been able to care for his son, born very premature. In the box, his client, FFP2 mask on his nose, listens attentively while his neighbors talk to each other.
Farid Kharkhach is a man ” who is scared of everything “, continues Me Lefrancq. Who doesn’t watch television news, which is too anxiety-provoking. Who flees the funeral of his in-laws. Who has all kinds of phobias. ” How could someone like that help a person prepare for violent action for 300 euros? », asks the lawyer.
Me Lefrancq then advances three hypotheses that could justify such an act, to reject them one after the other. An unbreakable bond with the person we are helping? Farid Kharkhach barely knew Khalid El Bakraoui, the coordinator of November 13 and future suicide bomber of the Brussels attacks, to whom he is accused of having provided false documents. Be committed to the cause yourself? The Belgian-Moroccan has only a very residual practice of religion. The QER itself excludes any radicalization. Suffer from a psychiatric pathology? Several expert reports hold him responsible for his actions. To hear his lawyer, Farid Kharkhach only got into the business of false papers to meet the medical needs of his sick sister, and found himself tied to the cell of November 13 in spite of himself.
A ” intermediary of intermediary »
And even. Far from the predominant position that the national anti-terrorist prosecution wanted to give him, the man was only a ” intermediary of intermediary “, insists Me Fanny Vial who, following her colleague, tackles the substance of the case. Farid Kharkhach is not himself a forger, but one of the last links in the chain between Khalid El Bakraoui and the vast “Catalogue” network, responsible for making hundreds of false papers.
With method, the lawyer works first to expose all the leads that the investigators have not explored, ” without bitterness she says, aware that after the amazement of the attacks the priority for the police was elsewhere. Patiently, she goes up the minutes, notes the telephone contacts between several members of the cell or their relatives – Salah Abdeslam, the brother of Mohamed Abrini – and figures from the “Catalog” network. She finds the trace of a mandate of 600 euros carried out by Brahim Abdeslam for the benefit of a Pakistani individual in Paris who would have affirmed that it was about a refund after an order of documents not honored. ” It means that Brahim Abdeslam had his entries in the networks of false papers “, she says.
This demonstration made, Me Vial insists on the too big costume which one wanted to make wear to his client. A costume that the prosecution itself considerably shrunk during the investigation and the trial, only retaining against Farid Kharkhach his role in the design of four identity cards out of a total of 14. His lawyers recognize only three. Just like the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office, they point out, facing at this very moment the wife of Farid Kharkhach who has in a way played the ” intermediate intermediate intermediate “, playing the mailboxes in the absence of her husband.
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For a first card made in December 2014, there is no material proof of the involvement of Farid Kharkhach, argues Me Fanny Vial. She then displays a calendar, pointing in red to the many periods that her client was in Morocco and in yellow those when it is known that the false identity documents were made. Farid Kharkhach was systematically absent, which makes it possible to rely on the exploitation of his telephone contacts with his wife and his contact within the “Catalog” network to establish his degree of involvement.
The defining issue of radicalization
But whether he provided three, four or fourteen false documents does not change much of the fact that he is being prosecuted for criminal association in connection with a terrorist enterprise, the dreaded AMT punished by up to 30 years in prison, 20 at the material time. It suffices for this that Farid Kharkhach, without having sympathy for the cause, without even having the slightest knowledge of a terrorist project, was aware of the radicalization of Khalid El Bakraoui and therefore of the “terrorist context” to qualify the facts.
Of this, the prosecution is convinced. Not only does he have had supper with the devil, but he had his nose in the plate “, he asserted. The prosecution wants proof of this in the statement made to Belgian investigating judge Isabelle Panou in 2017, the only one to this effect. ” I knew he had become radicalized (…) I had always known that Khalid El Bakraoui was fully in Islam “Admitted Farid Kharkhach. A confession made under pressure from the judge and his lawyer at the time, he said later. Me Fanny Vial produces an exchange of text messages between the brother of their client and this court-appointed lawyer. She writes to him that a suspension has been decided ” to make him understand that the other was radicalized “. This exchange comes at least to attest that this story, cruelly mocked by the Advocates General, denied at the bar by Judge Panou in person, is not entirely the fruit of the imagination of Farid Kharkhach.
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And it does not matter in his defense whether this story is true or simply the expression of the panic of a man who feels his world collapsing under the weight of the charges against him; ” these confessions are not credible “. In his statement to the Belgian judge, Farid Kharkhach evokes the very religious behavior of Khalid El Bakraoui in September 2015, at a time when he himself was in Morocco. He says he recognizes Osama Atar by his side, at a time when the mastermind of the attacks is in Syria. ” To get out of it, he is ready to say anything “says Me Vial. The lack of contact between the two men does not make him close, she recalls. And to underline the contradictions of the accusation which confines its role to a ” punctual help “, but considers all the same that there was ” association “.
Fanny Vial is then almost imploring. After more than three hours of pleadings, she asks the court for the acquittal of her client for the facts of association of terrorist criminals, and his conviction for complicity in forgery. ” He has been in pre-trial detention for five and a half years, she concludes. It’s too much. »