How the gunman Mohammed Merah avoided deportation to Algeria and finds himself at large in Toulouse
As he did not respect his judicial control, the police arrested Fettah Malki on Wednesday evening. He is in Toulouse after Algeria refused to host him. We explain to you why the man who armed Mohammed Merah, who was to be expelled to Algeria, is still in Toulouse.
Are the degraded Franco-Algerian diplomatic relations at the origin of the return of Fettah Malki, 38, in the heart of the Izards district in Toulouse? This district had seen the birth of Mohammed Merah, the Toulouse terrorist, a jihadist armed by Fettah Malki, facts for which he was condemned by the special assize court of Paris.
A chosen one is sure, this Wednesday evening, it is triggered at the Izards, in violation of its judicial control. Obviously well informed, the police officers of the departmental security, supported by the departmental intervention company, set up an operation to go and pick up Malki.
The latter, forced to stay with his mother, had made the wall. No doubt to see one of his children. He did not resist his arrest and police follow-up at the central police station.
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Bulletproof weapon and vest
Comment did it end up there? Fettah Malki, the one who provided Mohammed Merah with a weapon and a bulletproof vest in 2012, has always been considered the third man involved in the Toulouse attacks. He was tried in 2017 by the special assize court in Paris, alongside Abdelkader Merah, the brother of the scooter killer, and sentenced to 14 years of criminal imprisonment. Rejected on appeal, in 2019, he had this time sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Thanks to the lack of terrorist qualification of the facts with which he was accused, obtained hard by his lawyers, including Me Alexandre Martin, Fettah Malki was able to benefit from reductions in sentences. This is how he was released, discreetly, at the end of last August.
But the French State, determined not to let the armorer of Merah free on its territory, decided to launch an expulsion procedure against this man with dual Franco-Algerian nationality. Once out of the Muret detention center, Malki therefore took over the management of the Cornebarrieu administrative detention center, pending deportation to Algeria. Malki arrived in France at the age of 10. “His whole family is here and he no longer has any ties to Algeria,” says Christian Etelin, one of his lawyers. It is inadmissible ”.
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Franco-Algerian relations strained
This is where the tense diplomatic relations between France and Algeria come into play. The diplomatic crisis has mounted on the issue of visas and the new measures taken by France to make it harder for people to obtain these documents. coming from Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia.
According to the Elysee, these countries were not playing the game to allow the departure of their nationals under the influence of an obligation to leave French territory. Did the Algerian state, the sole decision-maker to issue visas, use Fettah Malki to put pressure on Paris? While in a detention center, his visa was refused twice. After a month and a half in Cornebarrieu, as the law requires, he came out free. This is how he found himself in Toulouse, under judicial supervision, with certain obligations. On Wednesday, he did not respect one of them when he went to the Izards district.
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At the end of his police custody, he was presented to the prosecution and should be tried by the Toulouse Criminal Court this Friday as part of the immediate comparisons. In 2012, in Toulouse and Montauban, Mohammed Merah had coldly killed seven people including three children during three attacks. Fettah Malki has always assured that he was unaware of the terrorist plans of the scooter killer. He had provided him with the weapon and the bulletproof vest.