Terrorist attack trials sometimes arouse a feeling of strangeness during the first days of the hearing, devoted to the personality of the accused. We talk about their childhood, more or less gentle, their schooling, often chaotic, the passion of one for motorcycles, the girlfriend of another, an internship at Darty, etc., taking care never to discuss the bottom of the file. This compartmentalization of the debates can sometimes give rise to the impression of a discrepancy between the profile of certain accused and the extreme seriousness of the acts with which they are accused.
This disturbing dissonance was felt by the entire audience on Tuesday, November 5, on the second day of the trial for the assassination of history and geography professor Samuel Paty, with the start of the examination of the life paths of the eight accused. referred to the special assize court of Paris. In the absence of the assassin, Abdoullakh Anzorov, an 18-year-old Chechen refugee killed by police officers a few minutes after the attack, on October 16, 2020, it was two of his friends who opened this sequence.
Naïm Boudaoud and Azim Epsirkhanov were 18 and 19 years old at the time of the events. A few months before the attack, these two high school students with a mediocre academic background had just obtained their professional baccalaureate in Evreux, where they grew up. They have been sleeping in prison for four years awaiting this trial.
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They are the ones who face the heaviest penalty: life imprisonment for “complicity in terrorist assassination”. They are notably accused of having helped the terrorist to buy the knife which was used to decapitate Samuel Paty.
” Introvert “
With his thin face and his twisted white sweater, Naïm Boudaoud looks like a bird that has fallen from the nest. Described by the personality investigator as ” introvert “to the point that his parents initially believed he was autistic, he was born very “puny” and has nourished, over the years, a deep complex.
Naïm Boudaoud grew up in a certain material and emotional comfort. His parents, two qualified civil servants of Algerian origin, ensured that he lacked nothing. He was one of the few young people in his neighborhood to own a car: “I have been a fan of cars and motorbikes since I was little and I was lucky enough to have a Golf 7”he boasts in his frail voice. A « chance » which will take him to the dock.
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One day, around the age of 17, Naïm Bouadaoud met Azim Epsirkhanov, a Chechen refugee a year his senior, in Evreux. Arriving in France at the age of 9 with his parents to escape the war, the latter is as strong as Naïm is slender. Naïm has just been the victim of an attack; Azim offers to settle his “confuses”. Neither of the two new friends is radicalized. They both come from families with a Muslim culture where religious practice is almost non-existent.
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