The scene barely lasts 25 seconds. On these CCTV images broadcast by a German journalist and activist, known for his work with the Kurdish community, and that The Express was able to consult, a middle-aged man can be seen entering a barbershop. He is dressed in a crumpled anorak, red with white stripes. Her gray hair is cut short. In his left hand he holds a black bag, as one would carry a briefcase. In his right hand, a weapon. His gait is alert, although he seems to hobble slightly with his right leg. The man advances in the trade, points his weapon, folds his arm. He keeps moving forward. Then he seems to be overpowered by several people.
This man is called William M., 69 years old, and has just committed a killing. This Friday, December 23, he murdered three people, a woman and two men, in the heart of Paris, in the tenth arrondissement. Three other people were injured, two of them are in absolute emergency. Around 11:40 a.m., this sexagenarian landed in the Ahmet-Kaya cultural center, located rue d’Enghien, run by the Kurdish community in France. On the porch and inside the center, he shot two people. He also chased and then shot a person who had taken refuge in a nearby Kurdish restaurant. It was in a third time that he went to this hairdresser-barber located a few numbers away, also run by members of the Kurdish community, where he fired at least once, before being disarmed and arrested by law enforcement. One of the victims is Emine Kara, the leader of the Kurdish women’s movement in France, according to Agit Polat, the spokesperson for the Kurdish Democratic Council in France (CDKF). According to Rojinfo, a Kurdish associative media, and Mediapart, a Mîr Perwer singer, would also be among those killed.
Twenty-four hours after the events, many gray areas remain. Was William M. helped in his crime? In a first statement to journalists, around 4 p.m., Gérald Darmanin, the Minister of the Interior, explained that the author had “acted obviously alone”. His home was searched this Friday, December 23 evening. Located in the second arrondissement of Paris, it is less than fifteen minutes walk from the Ahmet-Kaya center. Was the Kurdish community particularly targeted? Again, Gérald Darmanin wanted to be cautious. The shooter “obviously wanted to target foreigners”, the minister said, but “there was no evidence” to suggest on Friday afternoon that he specifically wanted to target Kurds, he continued. . In the evening, according to our information, William M., on the other hand, recognized a “racial” motive for his act.
Center close to the PKK
Protesters and CRS in Paris, after deadly shootings in the 10th arrondissement, December 23, 2022
© / afp.com/Thomas SAMSON
The Kurdish community, whose spontaneous demonstration in Paris sparked clashes with the police, remains convinced of having been deliberately targeted. “It is inadmissible that the terrorist character is not retained and that people try to make us believe that it is a simple militant of the far right […] came to commit this horrible attack on our premises”, declared Agit Polat during a press conference, before making the link between “the Turkish State” and these assassinations: “The political situation in Turkey concerning the Kurdish movement leaves us very clearly think that these are political assassinations”. The perpetrator, driver and handyman of the victims, whose “acquaintances” with the Turkish secret services were noted by the magistrates, died in detention before being judged.
The Ahmet-Kayat cultural center is considered by many sources, including the Court of Cassation, which ruled on this subject in 2014, as the “legal showcase” of the PKK, an organization listed as a terrorist by Turkey and the European Union. European Union, although this point is often denounced by the French left. “No credible coincidence”, tweeted Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a few hours after the killing.
“Death to Migrants”
The personality of the alleged perpetrator of the attack also raises questions. A former SNCF railway worker, this retiree has a criminal record. In 2017, he was given a first six-month suspended prison sentence for the prohibited possession of category A, B and C weapons. He was also a sports shooter. On June 30, 2022, he was again sentenced to one year in prison by the Bobigny Criminal Court for having stabbed a burglar during a break-in at his home. He appealed this decision. Last but not least, William M. is currently indicted for “violence aggravated by three circumstances followed by incapacity for more than eight days”, according to a source familiar with the matter. These three circumstances are none other than the use of a bladed weapon, racist motivation and premeditation. On December 8, 2021, he burst into a migrant camp in the Parc de Bercy, in the twelfth arrondissement of Paris, armed with a saber.
“He arrived around 6 a.m., he pretended to jog before pulling out his saber and shouting ‘death to migrants’. He hit a gentleman in the back and on the hip as well as other people, migrants who fought with him,” says a volunteer from the Aurore association, present at the camp that day. A manager of the Utopia 56 association, also active in this camp, remembers a “completely unbalanced” person. However, according to a source familiar with the matter, a psychiatric expertise was carried out at the request of justice, and it did not detect any alteration of discernment at the time of the act, any more than a mental illness. William M. was taken into pre-trial detention almost immediately and had to be released on December 12, 2022, due to a legal provision: it is prohibited to keep a person in pre-trial detention for more than twelve months if the misdemeanor or crime for which she is prosecuted is punished with less than ten years in prison and has not been committed in an organized gang. Which is the case here.
“Big flaw a priori“
The release of William M. is therefore explained by the time of the investigation, still open today, according to a source familiar with the matter. His release was accompanied by a judicial review, including a ban on leaving French territory, a check-in at the police station once a week and an obligation for psychiatric care. On the other hand, no specific follow-up by the intelligence services was carried out. William M. was unknown to the DGSI or territorial intelligence. A point judged very harshly by a former head of an intelligence service: “Given the duration of pretrial detention before trial for an act of racism with a weapon, it is abnormal that the person concerned is not known and followed by the services of intelligence, the intelligence directorate of the police headquarters, territorial intelligence, the DGSI and the anti-terrorist sub-directorate (Sdat) of the PJ. Penitentiary intelligence must report its exit to these services. a priori”. And the same to continue by evoking the Ahmet-Kaya cultural center: “In addition, this place is very sensitive, followed by the Turkish secret services. It should be monitored given the precedents. Double fault”.
The whole debate is actually about the qualification of the profile of William M. Gérald Darmanin explained during his press briefing that the author of the killing was “not listed as someone ultra-right or an extremist participating in meetings in organizations that we have dissolved”. “It is not certain that this person has any political commitment,” he added. In the same way, the Paris prosecutor’s office said in a press release that “nothing allows at this stage to accredit any affiliation of this man to an extremist ideological movement”. However, in the criteria governing monitoring by the intelligence services, membership of a movement or a known political commitment appear to be important indicators of dangerousness. According to our information, prison intelligence did not consider his file as particularly sensitive because it was not classified as “far right”, for lack of known commitment on this point.
Previous of Bayonne
The ultra-right remains a constant concern of the intelligence services. Since 2017, “nine planned attacks” linked to the ultra-right and the conspiratorial movement have been foiled by the DGSI. Among them, several emblematic cases such as that of the Barjols, who wanted to attack Emmanuel Macron or the AFO group, which planned to poison halal food. Racist “lone wolves” have not been particularly targeted, as evidenced by the case of William M. In terrorism, the “lone wolf” principle requires a person to act in empathy with the objectives of an ideological group, but without the slightest logistical link with its sources of inspiration. However, this profile is tending to become the norm in France, particularly with regard to Islamist terrorism: according to our information, eight of the last nine acts of terrorism in France have come from individuals unknown to the intelligence services, radicalized in their corner.
If this type of violent action is particularly difficult to counter in the absence of the slightest warning sign, such was not the case here, since William M. was prosecuted for a racist attack. His sports shooter profile could also have alerted. Before the investigators, this Friday, December 23, he once again affirmed the “racial” motivation of his assassinations of members of the Kurdish community. But it is true that his profile appears to be relatively atypical. Apart from Claude Sinké, former FN candidate, unknown to the police, who attacked the Bayonne mosque and seriously injured two people with a pistol in October 2019, no far-right “lone wolf” had yet surrendered. guilty of acts of such gravity. “The fight against terrorism is like this: it often takes failures to progress and adapt,” a French intelligence official told us a few weeks ago.
The investigation was entrusted to the Paris prosecutor’s office and the regional directorate of the judicial police. The national anti-terrorist prosecutor’s office has not been seized for the moment. “As is, […] there is no element which would favor the need for their referral”, specified Laure Beccuau, the public prosecutor of Paris. The penal code defines as an act of terrorism the crime which has “the aim of seriously disturbing the public order through intimidation or terror”. A typology that misunderstands cases like that of William M. A former French intelligence leader still estimated this Friday evening, with The Express, that “this type of profile remains within the scope of common law” because “there is no threat to national security”. The prospect of anti-immigration killings is not entirely new, however. In the latest issue of Front Populaire, Michel Onfray’s magazine, published on November 29, Michel Houellebecq openly evokes this hypothesis. “When entire territories are under Islamist control, I think acts of resistance will take place,” he said, describing “upside-down Bataclans.”