It is a rare word heard this Friday, January 20, the specially composed Assize Court of Paris. Jonathan Geffroy is being prosecuted for “terrorist criminal association for having joined Syria with his family in February 2015. He joined the ranks of Islamic State fighters there before contacting French intelligence to request his exfiltration. Incarcerated on his return to France in September 2017, the Toulousain, 40 years old today, presents himself as repentant. He explained himself at length about his career, without trying to clear himself.
transcript of hearing,
In 2007, Jonathan Geffroy, 25, converted for love. But falls quickly, he says, on ” bad people at the mosque near his home.
A mosque that many Toulouse jihadists have actually attended, and where Jonathan Geffroy notably meets the brothers Jean-Michel and Fabien Clain, future propagandists of EI.
All had a literal reading of the Quran. Me, I had no notion of Islam, I tried to do well by applying the texts: this is the beginning of my apprenticeship and the starting point of my radicalization.
The ” tipping point “, he continues, it is in 2012. “ Traumatized by the abuses of Bashar el-Assad “, Jonathan Geffroy begins to think about the start, especially since over time, ” all my friends have gone there “, he points.
“I bear a responsibility”
When he finally reached Syria in February 2015, with his wife and child, Jonathan Geffroy maintained that he wanted ” to be a paramedic “. ” But, I don’t rule out fighting “, he admits.
I am completely under the influence at this time. Proud to have weapons – it’s a feeling of power – and very happy to meet people from all over the world who have come to take part in this fight against Bashar, even if this fight has, in fact, very little existed, and that IS was not on the side of the Syrians at all. But at the time, I was in a total utopia that I built and that IS advocated in its videos.
His ” disengagement will be done in two major stages: first, he is personally disappointed of IS, who wants to send him back to the front when he is wounded. Around May 2016, the couple then sought a way to leave the area.
Then comes the attack in Nice, on July 14, 2016. Jonathan Geffroy, who nevertheless saw a person crucified as soon as he arrived in Syria, begins to open his eyes.
At first, I protected myself by telling myself that I had nothing to do with the abuses, it was not me. With Nice, I said to myself: “I joined these people, I bear a responsibility. »
“Leaving is a choice”
This “ long process of disengagement, Jonathan Geffroy says he has pursued him since his return to France in September 2017 and during these more than five years spent in detention.
Today, I am ashamed of having left, of having joined these people, of not having been able to think for myself, and above all of having taken my wife and my son to a field of war.
But isn’t he trying to discard himself by presenting himself, as the president says, as “ jihadist in spite of himself »? ” There was recruitment, that’s for sure, but leaving is a choice. »
Standing facing the courtyard, he says he feels like a ” presumed convict “.
It’s very hard to accept. I have always been cooperative with the intelligence services, then the judge, because I see no other way to prove my disengagement.
” I can’t do anything more. All I ask is to get my life back “, he breathes.
►To re-read: The Toulouse ex-jihadist Jonathan Geffroy before the special assize court in Paris