A French court on Saturday, June 21, upheld a life sentence for a man convicted for his part in the 2016 killing of a police couple at their home in front of their young child. In 2023, Mohamed Lamine Aberouz, a 31-year-old French-Moroccan binational, was found guilty of complicity in the stabbings of Jean-Baptiste Salvaing and his partner Jessica Schneider by his friend Larossi Abballa in June 2016.
Abballa slit 36-year-old Schneider’s throat in front of her three-year-old son and then stabbed 42-year-old Salvaing to death outside their home in the town of Magnanville, outside Paris. He was shot dead by a police response unit. Abballa claimed the attack on behalf of the Islamic State group in a chilling live video from the scene of the crime broadcast on social media. The assault took place at the height of a wave of terror and marked the first time that police officers were traced to, and killed, in their homes.
On Saturday, the Paris Special Criminal Court found Aberouz guilty on all counts including complicity in the murder of a person in a position of public authority and participation in a terrorist criminal conspiracy. His lawyers said their client would lodge an appeal with the Court of Cassation.
‘Evil will’
Vincent Brengarth, one of his lawyers, said Aberouz was “devastated.”
“The benefit of the doubt was effectively granted to the prosecution, which represents a reversal of a fundamental principle,” he said.
Aberouz has maintained his innocence, saying he was at prayer the night of the attack. He has condemned the attack and insisted that Abballa acted alone. “It was his evil will,” Aberouz said in court. “I regret having known him and having been fooled.”
“I assure you that I have no responsibility for your misfortune,” Aberouz said in the courtroom, looking at the families of Schneider and Salvaing.
According to the prosecutor, the accused was a member of the Islamic State group and present at the scene of the crime on June 13, 2016. The defendant’s denials “do not stand up to scrutiny,” said prosecutor Naïma Rudloff. “The sequence of events confirms that this could only have been done with the help of a second man,” Rudloff added. “Can you imagine a man, in broad daylight, attacking two potentially armed police officers?”
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Brengarth, one of the lawyers for the accused, had argued for his client’s acquittal on the grounds of reasonable doubt, stressing the lack of “concrete evidence” against him. The accused’s DNA was found on the victims’ computer. His lawyers have claimed his DNA came from Abballa’s car.
