Diving into the diary of a Daesh jihadist

Source: https://california18.com/diving-into-the-diary-of-a-daesh-jihadist/4670282022/

This is a Conquérant red notebook, ordinary school model: small format, large Séyès squares, 96 pages. It was intended for the maths lessons of the detainees of Fleury-Mérogis. On the inside cardboard page, Kevin Guiavarch, one of the jihadists most closely followed by the French anti-terrorist services, gave the Bic an eloquent summary: “1) Before departure, 2) Departure from Syria, 3) Entry into Daesh…” In the following pages, he recounts in detail his trip to Syria, where he left in 2013.

Until this day, the document had remained in the secrecy of the anti-terrorist investigations. It was only briefly mentioned during the trial in March of this 29-year-old man before the special assize court in Paris. An atypical trial, where Guiavarch was tried at the same time as his four wives.

The book should be read with some caution. On the merits, as the National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office has pointed out, “a watered-down presentation and a complacent rewrite of history”. But on the form, even if they are sometimes full of mistakes, these pages covered with a teenager’s handwriting are rare. For the first time, they set down on paper the detailed chronological account of one of the first French people to leave for Syria.

Usually, the jihadists only deliver fragmentary traces, most often on social networks, in brief videos or during their interrogations… And until then, far from the “Diary of a terrorist”, subtitle of the “Horse pale”, a novel by Russian Boris Savinkov published in 1908, only David Vallat, a young Frenchman arrested for having served the networks of the Algerian Armed Islamic Group (GIA) in the 1990s, had recorded his memories under a striking title: “Terror of youth “. Writing is more the prerogative of ultra-right terrorists: Brenton Tarrant, Anders Breivik, or, very recently, the white supremacist in Buffalo (State of New York) have accompanied their mass crimes with long autobiographical manifestos.

In Guiavarch’s notebook, written in 2017 for the attention of his examining magistrate, it all starts with his personal cracks. Mother frequently in psychiatric hospital, violent father: “All this suffering caused me to drink alcohol until I was drunk after fifth grade when I was only 13 years old “, he writes.

Without specifying that it was precisely the age when he decided to convert to Islam, he who, baptized at 3 months, had been a choir boy in Paris, then “fired from the scouts because he was making a mess”, as his mother will tell. In April 2012, the break with his first wife marked a major turning point towards further radicalization: “It put me in a serious state of depression. I almost committed suicide. I posted [mes angoisses] on the Ansar al-Haqq forum. A friend in Grenoble recognized my message and dissuaded me. »

“Immature and irresponsible choice”

The Ansar al-Haqq forum was then the French-speaking bridgehead of the jihadist movement. Kevin Guiavarch is also already close to Forsane Alizza, an association officially mobilized against Islamophobia, but in reality intended to spread the idea of ​​jihad in Europe. Forsane Alizza will be dissolved in 2012, just after the killings committed by Mohammed Merah. Assassinations which had been the subject of noisy celebrations within the association, and in particular on the part of Salma O., a woman twelve years his senior whom Kevin Guiavarch met, precisely, at this time.

She adores Osama bin Laden to the point of later giving the first name of the leader of Al-Qaeda to his first son, who was stillborn. In his introspection, Kevin Guiavarch gauges the reasons for ” [s]we leave in a hurry” to Syria in January 2013, as “a mixture of 60-70% of the spirit of revenge by causing pain [sa première femme qui l’a quitté] and [ses] parents and 30-40% due to the situation [humanitaire] in Syria. » Later he will write: “I obviously regret my choice which was immature, thoughtless and irresponsible. I regret it 100%. »

Guiavarch, as we saw at his trial in March, is a big guy with a full beard who speaks like Salafist preachers with a low voice and very long sentences. He undoubtedly wants to tell his story.

In the notebook, he reports the frenzied reception reserved, in 2013, for the first Europeans who will form the troops of the future caliphate. In Jarablus, in northern Syria, he was received “like some kind of star” : “It was fun but embarrassing at the same time. » He enlisted in the Free Syrian Army (ASL), first for “ribat” (surveillance patrols), but never, according to his version, for real combat.

He tells :

” [Les premiers mois sur place] are paced to spend their days 24 hours a day with my wife as we used to in France because we are very close, downloading several films, surfing the internet, walking, etc. »

In effect. The couple dialogue on social networks with young French women from Grenoble, Amiens, Nice… And thanks to the persuasion of Salma O., qualified as “recruiter” by the anti-terrorist prosecution, three young women – Parveen L., Sahra R. and Sally D. – join them. They fly to Turkey, via Spain or Germany.

Accepting a de facto polygamy, all find themselves around Kevin Guiavarch, with six children they have brought or who were born on the spot. In Azaz, where they moved, they were offered accommodation confiscated from the vanquished: “A new apartment [chez] a former pro-Assad who fled”, writes Giavarch. He and his four wives live from “1,000-2,000 euros in donations that people sent to the account in the name of [s]to mother »and then ” of [leur] RSA until it [leur] be cut”.

False leads and pseudo-smugglers

Yet war is their daily life. This is the case in Cheddadi, which has become a dormitory village for French-speaking jihadists where Parveen L. will remember having met Samy Amimour, one of the future Bataclan killers, known for his abuses against prisoners…

“ In December 2013details the newspaper, an Assad helicopter drops a barrel bomb on my street. I was at the market and my wives at home. My building was almost destroyed and there, in tears, shocked, I shout “Salmaaa” but no one answers. I’m looking for the bodies under the rubble. Then a neighbor of the building, Abou Mohammed the Tunisian, told me that my wives were at his house in his new house. »

Later, a woman becomes pregnant, then ill… According to her story, it is necessary to go and fetch the drugs by motorbike to Raqqa.

From 2015, all want to return to France:

“As the days go by, in Raqqa, the new headquarters, I discover another facet of Daesh, more violent, harsh and extremist, paranoia, looking for anyone against their thoughts, or defending the FSA, or people seeking to flee to lock them up, torture and kill them…”

Leaving Syria is proving to be complex, between false leads and pseudo-smugglers.

In his notebook, the jihadist recounts incredible episodes, such as these meetings with intermediaries which will prove to be real traps set up by the Islamic State police. Or an impossible journey in northern Syria with the children, to a border ” walled “ and impassable with Turkey. Guiavarch and his wives were finally arrested on June 6, 2016 upon their arrival in Turkey.

Several gray areas exist on these routes. Especially on a very sensitive point. The name of Kevin Guiavarch appears in the “Lafarge” file, whose leaders are being prosecuted for complicity in crimes against humanity and financing of terrorism. Security officials at the cement plant based in Jalabiya, northern Syria, were reportedly sources of intelligence for Western countries at the start of the war. A DGSI agent confirmed that he had received information in January 2013 on “two individuals, a couple, who had crossed the Turkish-Syrian border”.

The French cement manufacturer Lafarge, suspected of having financed the Islamic State, was he a nest of spies?

According to several internal e-mails, they were Kevin Guiavarch and Salma O. On that date, the Americans had even placed Guiavarch on the blacklist of the most wanted terrorists on the spot. Did the man with the four wives understand this? Officially, no. Questioned during the investigation, he soberly replied: “I have never been contacted by Lafarge. »

A rare verdict

What judicial epilogue to hope for after such a course? At trial, Guiavarch’s version was questioned, with prosecutors attacking the ” myth “ of ” Good Samaritan “ who wanted to flee Daesh. If the man has been a nurse for a few weeks, he “mainly spent twenty-three months carrying out military activities”according to the magistrates. “He had certainly found a ground of valorization to seduce women, but does that make him a fighter? » on the contrary, questions his lawyer, Mr.and Vincent Brengarth, who was able to convince the court of “emotional void” founding the personality of the accused, while castigating the absence of proof of his military activities. Seventeen years of imprisonment were required. Fourteen will be inflicted upon him. A rare verdict, the requisitions being infrequently revised downwards in terrorist matters.

“The idea is to bring you back to us”: at the prison of Health, the delicate care of radicalized people.

The red notebook ends. “It is not common to write such an object. It was in a process of writing a novel. To write his life story », concluded a personality investigator who met the terrorist. What was his goal?

“I was really hoping for help, support, listening, compassion and understanding when I returned to France, being able to reintegrate myself and only take a short prison term. […] to be able to enjoy and educate my children for whom I fought especially to offer them this future in France. »

This is how, in his conclusion, Guiavarch summarizes his state of mind as a ghost: to avoid a sanction, without hiding his bitterness towards France. The court, in convicting him, held that “by its denial of the most serious facts [c’est-à-dire les combats]he does not seem to have engaged in any real work of introspection”.