Trial Begins for Five Women Accused in 2016 Paris Terror Plot

Three years ago, five people were arrested as they were about to carry out an attack in France. A commando of five women had revealed the active role of women in jihad.

They are suspected of having wanted to launch attacks in September 2016, following the instructions of Rachid Kassim, a man who has been found guilty of having inspired the murder of a police officer and his wife in Magnanville, in June 2016, and that of a priest in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, Normandy, in July of the same year.

According to the magistrates, had it not been for a choice of bad fuel, there would have been bloodshed in Paris that day. Indeed, on the night of September 3 to 4, 2016, after sending a claim video to Rachid Kassim, two of the accused, Inès Madani and Ornella Gilligmann, parked a Peugeot 607 filled with six gas canisters in front of restaurants near Notre-Dame.

They threw a cigarette after spraying the car with diesel. But there was no explosion. Ornella Gilligmann was arrested on September 6 in the south of France as she tried to flee, while Inès Madani, following Rachid Kassim’s advice, went to another woman, Amel Sakaou.

These two women were joined by Sarah Hervouët, also guided by the jihadist on encrypted messaging. The same media writes that on September 8, knowing they were being hunted by the police, they left their apartment armed with kitchen knives. In the parking lot, Sarah Hervouët stabbed an undercover police officer who was in a van.

Inès Madani will be tried for "attempted murder" on the police officer but she denies wanting to attack him; she would have shouted at him, "Kill me", wanting to die as a martyr. Facing life imprisonment, she would have been a mentor figure for the "sisters" of jihad.

She is notably known for having encouraged women to join Daesh. But, for her lawyer, Laurent Pasquet Marinacce, this image of a mentor is just a "legend", the Notre-Dame affair being "a collective emulation". According to him, "the big bosses, they are the men who, in Syria, have pulled the strings".

The trial, which is being held before the Special Assize Court, composed solely of professional judges, should end on October 11.