“Dread is bringing out of peace. It is the disappearance of the curtain behind which hides nothingness, a curtain which normally allows one to live in peace. This curtain is irretrievably torn, and we then know forever that nothingness, death, exist. Terrorism is impossible tranquillity. Your verdict will not have the virtue of repairing this torn curtain and restoring their original tranquility to the victims. It will not heal wounds, visible or invisible, it will not bring the dead back to life. But he can at least assure them that it is, here, justice and law that have the last word. »
Camille Hennetier sits down again. At the end of a landmark indictment, delivered in three voices from Wednesday June 8 to Friday June 10, she has just requested, on behalf of the National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office (PNAT) that she embodies with Nicolas Braconnay and Nicolas Le Bris, sentences ranging from from five years in prison (Ali Oulkadi) to irreducible life imprisonment (Salah Abdeslam) against the twenty accused in the trial of the November 13 attacks.
Life against all those in the box who, prosecuted as an accomplice or co-author of the killings, incurred it: the PNAT hit hard. Penalties opening the door to an early release or adjustable against those less involved: the PNAT has shown discernment. Place, from Monday, to the pleadings of the defense. The specially composed Assize Court of Paris will deliver its verdict on June 29.
For three days, she witnessed a piece of judicial bravery. Fifteen hours to sum up four and a half years of investigation and nine months of hearing, to “rebuild the puzzle” the deadliest attacks in the history of France, to establish responsibilities, dismantle the lies of some, admit doubts about others, rake the slightest telephone boundary, the slightest geolocation, the slightest declaration where guilt would nestle.
The November 13 file and its million pages were too big for a simple indictment. It was therefore a fresco, immense and tragic. The testimonies of 400 civil parties heard at the hearing will constitute the most complete and eloquent account of the evening of November 13 and the suffering it caused. On the architecture of these attacks, from their conception to their realization, the precision, the exhaustiveness and the sobriety of Camille Hennetier, Nicolas Braconnay and Nicolas Le Bris will be the reference.
Beyond the methodical reconstruction of events, this indictment will remain marked by the words of Camille Hennetier on the impossible reintegration of certain defendants. “When once fanaticism has infected a brain, the disease is almost incurable. What can you say to a man who tells you that he prefers to obey God rather than men, and who, consequently, is sure to deserve heaven by slaughtering you? » To these words of Voltaire, she added her own: “It is difficult for our secularized society to apprehend the idea of an absolute faith, by which belief becomes an engine of destruction of the other. The force of this deadly ideology is such that nothing can shake it. I do not believe that a return to the past is possible, not for the moment in any case. »
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