2023-04-19 18:21:00
Three days before his arrest, Salah Abdeslam had fled the hideout on rue du Dries in Forest, managing to escape the police in search.
On Wednesday, one of the convicts in the Paris attacks file, Mohamed Bakkali, told the Assize Court that about two months before the Brussels attacks, he had planned to give the police the address of a hideout of the cell. But, he added, he had given up, as he was afraid of reprisals from the El Bakraoui brothers, who will strike by suicide bomber on March 22, 2016.
Would that have avoided a bloodbath? Impossible to say. Is Mohamed Bakkali remaking history? Difficult to give an answer as the profile of this man, who knew Khalid El Bakraoui since 2013, is complex.
Terrorist and graduate in sociology
Of all the men involved in the cell that struck in Paris and Brussels, Mohamed Bakkali is the smartest. He speaks with ease. He takes great care in his answers. Incarcerated since November 26, 2015, he took advantage of this detention to obtain a degree in sociology.
He was sentenced to 25 years in prison for the attack on the Thalys on August 21, 2015 and a second time to 30 years in prison for the attacks of November 13, 2015. Mohamed Bakkali is a logistician. He convoyed terrorists and rented hideouts under false identities.
He will not admit to knowing the El Bakraoui brothers well until a few weeks after the attacks of March 22, 2016. And, to hear him on Wednesday before the Assize Court, it was out of fear that he was silent. In January 2016, he said, he considered revealing the location of Jette’s hideout, which he had rented under a false name and where Abdeslam hid, along with others, until January 9, 2016.
Mohamed Bakkali says he spoke to his lawyer at the time, who advised him to go this route. But he changed his mind after being transferred to Bruges prison where the regime was harsher. “I got scared because the El Bakraouis knew where my children were. I knew they would attack my loved ones,” he justified.
The bombs in Syria, this moment when everything would have changed for this defendant in the trial of the Brussels attacks: “I have never felt such hatred”
“A ball in the head”
To support the fear that could inspire Khalid El Bakraoui, he cited an anecdote. In October 2015, the man, who had obtained chargers which will be used on November 13, feared being denounced by an accomplice involved in these purchases. “He told me that if this one spoke, he would put a bullet in his head. However, he added, this accomplice was nevertheless a childhood friend of Khalid El Bakraoui.
At the time, Mohamed Bakkali, however, harbored doubts about the projects of the El Bakraoui brothers. He thus let it be understood that he knew that we were no longer in banditry. “I knew they were up to something. But I didn’t know what.” He didn’t imagine it was to attack civilians.
But, he further specifies, the El Bakraoui, as hardened mobsters, were not people to confide in. “They were not people who were asked questions. Otherwise it was suspicious. Khalid was quite paranoid,” he said.
Despite his suspicions, Mohamed Bakkali will agree to rent apartments under a false name for the El Bakraouis. And, to the president of the court who is surprised, he explains that “cis a gear. “This question comes to me often. We were in a relationship where we help each other, where there are links”.
But it is formal. Never, he says, would he have believed the El Bakraoui capable of committing a suicide attack themselves.
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