75th day of hearing this Wednesday in the trial of the November 13 attacks. Like the day before, the Court is still considering the case of Yassine Atar, on the relationship to religion of this 35-year-old Belgian-Moroccan accused of having been in contact with several members of the jihadist cell during the preparation of the attacks. He is above all the brother of Osama Atar considered to be the sponsor of the Paris attacks – also tried but presumed dead in Syria – and the cousin of Khalid and Brahim Bakraoui, coordinators of the November 13 attacks which blew themselves up a few months later. at Brussels airport. This Wednesday the Court heard Yassine Atar’s sister and uncle.
” Right from the start, my brother was found guilty by association, because he is the brother of, the cousin of. “Heard by videoconference from Brussels, the sister of Yassine Atar, beige jacket and yellow scarf, defends with calm and conviction the innocence of her brother. “ Yassine, has never been radicalized. He was never religious: he liked to go out to party, dress well, do his hair… “An average young man who hums Aznavour and Zaz at the wheel.
At the helm, his uncle paints a less flattering portrait but just as incompatible with that of a Jihad fighter: “ For me Yassine is the spiritual son of Bacchus, the god of vice and sex. A fundamentalist person does not scour the brothels of Tangier “, he decides. Both are categorical: Yassine is the exact opposite of Osama.
Over the audience hovers the shadow of this brother who left at the age of 19 to fight the international coalition in Iraq and who will have spent nearly 10 years in the jails of Abu Ghraib. This brother briefly returned to Belgium before joining the Islamic State group in Syria in 2013 and suspected of being one of the masterminds of November 13.
“I only have one brother left, it’s Yassine. »
When the president asks him about his brother Osama, his sister stops him. ” I no longer consider Osama as my brother Mr. President. I only have one brother left, it’s Yassine. »
The Court is surprised by this family which does not ask any questions to this son who has returned after 10 years of absence. ” By modesty “answers his uncle” I didn’t ask him if he had been tortured or sexually abused “. A silence also imposed by Osama Atar himself as a condition for his return to the parental home.
The Court also wonders, could Yassine Atar really ignore the radicalization of his cousins in prison? For their uncle who claims to have argued with Khalid Bakraoui when the latter had approved the kidnapping of high school girls from Chibok by the jihadists of Boko Haram, Khalid’s changeover was however obvious. But he agrees that the Bakraoui brothers would never have entrusted their terrorist projects to this ” dropper by Yassine.
“They took him for a clown”
“ They didn’t trust him, adds his sister, they took him for a clown. A clown underlines the Court which nevertheless sometimes sought to play the moral and religious authorities. ” A little too protective big brother “replies his sister, but who has never objected to the daughters of the family continuing their studies in Catholic schools where the wearing of the veil was prohibited.
The pensioner who visited him 60 times in prison came to say it at the bar: the only visible radicalism that inhabits Yassine Atar is his obsession with his file and his impatience, already noted the day before, to finally be able to Express.
► Read also: Trial of November 13: the brother of the alleged sponsor of the attacks defends himself step by step