Life Sentence for Failed French Church Attack Plotter, Convicted of Murder

The trial lasted a month. Sid-Ahmed was also found guilty of killing the 32-year-old fitness instructor Aurélie Châtelain with a bullet in a Villejuif parking lot in April 2015. "I deeply regret my path. (...) I will feel guilty all my life," he said before the verdict. However, he does not admit to being the author of the murder. Yet, DNA traces and the accused’s blood were found in the young woman’s car and on the murder weapon he possessed.

At the end of the hearing, Marie-Evelyne, Aurélie Châtelain’s mother, expressed her disappointment. "I would have liked him to confess. I had hoped until the last moment but no, it’s not possible. We came looking for the answer, I would have liked him to say: ’It’s me’. That’s all," she said on RTL.

During the trial, Sid-Ahmed nevertheless admitted to having prepared a planned attack on a church in the name of Daesh but turned his back on this project because he would have been shocked by the murder of the fitness instructor. He even recounted that he had voluntarily shot himself in the thigh in order not to suffer the "reprisals" of his sponsors in Syria.