(Paris) Jihadist Tyler Vilus, emir of the Islamic State group, was sentenced on Friday to 30 years of criminal imprisonment , with a two-thirds security period, for crimes committed in Syria from 2013 to 2015.
Posted on July 3 2020 at 17 h 59
Sofia BOUDERBALA
France Media Agency
The president explained to Tyler Vilus that the court had “decided not to pronounce” life, “what was possible”, the justice system having found him guilty of all the offenses, including his participation in the execution of two prisoners, but that she wanted to “leave him a glimmer of hope” so that he could “evolve”.
Considering that the attitude of the accused had not been very encouraging, President Laurent Raviot stressed however that he had “recognized a very important element” by finally admitting his intention to “die with arms hand ”when he left Syria in the summer 2015.
Welcoming the beginning of a journey, the magistrate called on the jihadist to realize well the different way “how justice is done in a Republic like ours and the way justice was done in Shaddadi in April 2015 “.
It was in this city in eastern Syria that Tyler Vilus, who became an IS police officer, participated in the filmed execution of two prisoners with a bullet to the head. With his face uncovered, equipped with a walkie-talkie and an automatic pistol, Vilus stands two meters from the executioners.
He was found guilty of this crime, which he never recognized, affirming at the hearing that he was there a little by chance “at the exit of the mosque”. For the prosecution, Tyler Vilus was only there exercising “his police function”: “He is part of the unit responsible for inflicting punishment, it is perfectly logical that he is on an execution scene” .
“Curtain of the Dead”
“I hope you leave behind this curtain of dead that the Advocate General spoke about,” the president told him.
“Thank you,” replied Tyler Vilus, who remained unmoved at the announcement of the verdict.
In this extraordinary file, if the court refused to close the door to any hope of redemption, it followed point by point the reasoning of Advocate General Guillaume Michelin, recognizing the emir of IS guilty terrorist association, having led a group of combatants and also “murder in an organized gang” in connection with a terrorist enterprise.
Tyler Vilus is one of the first of his generation to reach Syria, from the end 2012, and one of the few individuals still alive to have returned. “All stages of the accused's journey are intertwined with those of the construction of the caliphate,” said the representative of the prosecution.
“Opening the Vilus file means opening the directory of French-speaking jihadist personalities. He knows almost all of them, “he added, before listing the names of his” brother “Rached Riahi, member of the Cannes-Torcy sector, Belgian Mehdi Nemmouche and above all the terrorist attacks team 13 November 2015.
Installed in the Aleppo region (north-west) in March 2013, Vilus announced his promotion to his mother Christine in the summer Rivière – herself sentenced to 10 years for three stays in Syria with her son: “Besides being cop, I became emir of a group of French ».
For the Advocate General, he is “a warlord”: posted in Hraytan, on the outskirts of Aleppo, he takes part in the head of a group of French-speaking combatants in “cleaning operations”, he is “praised for his lethal efficacy”.
From 2014, he established himself as an “Islamic policeman” in Shaddadi (east), where the terrible execution scene takes place filmed by IS.
If there was no evidence to link him to the attacks of 13 – November, the Advocate General had estimated that he was coming back to France to “strike”, as he said to Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the coordinator of the Paris attacks, after his arrest in Turkey on July 2 2015.
Having kept his phone for a few days, he writes: “It changes nothing. When I go out jagis” – but will say that he was looking to coax IS to reach Mauritania, via Prague.
A scenario contradicted by his own statements to the court, where he admitted that he always had the plan to “die with arms in hand”. These are the words that were taken from him at the end of the trial that got him to escape the maximum sentence.