“I am going to come back and carry out an attack in the station”: a Nîmes man sentenced for advocating terrorism, insulting agents and threatening to kill

“I’m going to kill you all. I’m going to come back and I’m going to attack the station”. On Wednesday October 9, in the early evening, railway police officers at Nîmes station found themselves faced with a young man, aged 21, who uttered death threats to them, before threatening to carry out an attack in the station. According to the agents, he even shouted “God is great”. Facts that the defendant, who appeared at the Nîmes criminal court this Tuesday, October 15, only partially recognizes.

Disputed facts despite a scene filmed by the agents

This altercation would have started, according to Valérie Ducam, president of the court, over a joint that the latter would have rolled at the Nîmes station. The agents then ask for the defendant’s identity documents. Then they refused him access to the train, due to lack of a valid transport ticket. He’s starting to get angry. “You insult them as idiots. You say that you come from Marseille, that you have been in jail and that you know people”relates the president. Statements that the accused disputes, as do the death threats and the apology for terrorism. And this, despite the video started by one of the agents at the time of the incident. “You would have said you wanted to kill them, their wife and their children. Are you saying they are lying then?”asks the president. “Of course they are lying. I have to talk to you about railway security, when you are black or Arab, from a certain hour, they start to look at you blackly”the defendant tries to justify himself in the box.

Already convicted of violence, death threats and advocacy of terrorism

As for the acts of violence, the defendant does not admit to the punch but only to having pushed one of the agents, who still got away with two days of ITT. “But it’s because he pushed me before. I lost my temper”he emphasizes. Actions that he justifies by the fact that he is schizophrenic and that, that day, he had not taken his medication. A medical history not proven in procedure. For prosecutor Philip Ughetto, these facts are very worrying. Especially since the accused has already been convicted of violence, death threats and advocating terrorism before. “A worrying record knowing that he is only 21 years old. Obviously, he cannot stand authority”he mentions.

Her lawyer, Me Mélanie Bargeton, pleads for her release on the offense of advocating terrorism and death threats. “During his custody, he recognized that he was not in his natural state. He was ready to apologize. He had no intention of attacking the officers, and even less the station .” An argument which will not hold up against the court which sentences him to four years in prison with the revocation of his six-month suspended sentence, and a ban from Gard for five years.