Paris trial opens of the ‘Daesh landlord’ and drug dealer
Jawad Bendaoud, 31, is accused of sheltering two Bataclan attackers
The first trial stemming from the November 2015 Paris terrorist attacks opened yesterday with suspect Jawad Bendaoud accused of harbouring two of the jihadists after the carnage.
Bendaoud rented his apartment north of the capital to Abdelhamid Abaaoud – a senior ISIL member suspected of co-ordinating the attacks that killed 130 people – and his accomplice Chakib Akrouh.
The 31-year-old drug dealer and landlord became a figure of derision after a television interview in which he came across as clueless, insisting: “I didn’t know they were terrorists”, as police raided the hideout.
The attacks were the deadliest in France since the Second World War.
The trial comes ahead of that of the only survivor among the 10 gunmen who carried out the killing spree, Salah Abdeslam, who will appear in court in Belgium early next month.
The start of the judicial process is being followed closely by some survivors who are keen to understand more about the atrocities. Others are still too traumatised to pay attention.
“It’s both the signal that the quest for justice is under way but also a test of what sort of response it can provide,” said Arthur Denouveaux, the head of survivors’ group Life for Paris, in Le Parisien newspaper yesterday.
The Paris court will seek to determine whether Bendaoud actively conspired in helping the jihadists to hide out, or whether he got caught up in events unknowingly.
He has insisted throughout that he is innocent, while his lawyer and friends have pointed to his drug-taking, womanising and love of music as evidence he had no sympathy for the ISIL cause.
Antiterrorism police killed Abaaoud, Akrouh, and Abaaoud’s cousin Hasna Aitboulahcen in an assault on Bendaoud’s apartment on November 18, five days after the attacks.
Bendaoud gave his now infamous interview to BFM television just as armed officers were surrounding the apartment in the Saint-Denis suburb north of Paris.
“Someone asked me for a favour, I helped them out,” he said. All he knew, he said, was that they were from Belgium and wanted access to water and a place to pray.
The clip of the wide-eyed Bendaoud became a viral sensation, with internet users mocking his apparent lack of curiosity about his guests, at a time when a huge manhunt had been launched for the jihadists.
The press nicknamed him the “Daesh landlord” and his own lawyer, Xavier Nogueras, described him as “the one we laughed about, having cried so much” after the attacks.
The case will turn on what Bendaoud, a Saint-Denis native, knew about his tenants.
He has a long criminal record, including a conviction for cocaine dealing and was previously sentenced to eight years in jail for killing a man in a fight over a mobile phone. He was released from that sentence in 2013.
Bendaoud will go on trial alongside his friend Mohamed Soumah and Youssef Aitboulahcen, the brother of the woman killed in the raid on the apartment.
Ten heavily armed jihadists attacked the national stadium, bars and restaurants in Paris as well as the Bataclan concert venue on the night of November 13.
Before they were killed in the raid on the apartment, Abaaoud and Akrouh were suspected of preparing a suicide attack in La Defense, the business district in Paris.
Abdeslam, the only surviving militant, was arrested in Belgium four months after the attacks and transferred to France, where he has refused to co-operate with investigators.
He is to go on trial in Belgium on February 5 over a shoot-out with police that led to his capture.
About 15 people are in custody or being sought by police as part of the investigation into the Paris attacks, which has taken investigators to Belgium, Morocco and Turkey.