"I never thought I was going to host people who had killed more than 100 people"

November 13, 2015. While the French football team faces Germany at the Stade de France, Jawad Bendaoud is not far from there, in a parked car, with friends. The little gang smokes seals while listening to Chante France radio The Magnolias of Claude François. Under the influence of narcotics, they leave the vehicle and begin to dance. Suddenly, in the distance, they hear "a big boom". Two terrorists have just activated their explosive belt. "It's not a skit," he says on Wednesday to the president of Chamber 8-2 of the Court of Appeal of Paris. "It's not the
comedy show or I do not know what. It's the truth. "

Jawad has been tried since last week for housing two of the terrorists who bloodied France. Did he know, when he agreed to rent them a squat in Saint-Denis, that it was a question of
Abdelhamid Abaaoud and his accomplice, Chakib Akrouh? "At no time did I tell myself that I was going to host people who had killed more than 100 people," he says at the helm. "For me, it was a normal rental, there was no stress. Jogging red, black T-shirt, Jawad, very nervous, goes back to his memories to explain to the court how he managed to put himself in this situation.

"You speak a lot but you are not always clear"

Three days after Daesh struck France, the young man received a call from Mohamed Soumah. The man, with whom he mounted a small business cocaine, give him an appointment in his neighborhood. "For me, it was about narcotics," he says. Soumah is accompanied by a young woman with a "big hooked nose", that he feels like he has already met in Saint-Denis. Hasna Ait Boulahcen needs him to house, she says, her two "brothers" who found themselves on the street for an obscure reason. He agrees to rent them the squat he appropriated the next day, for 150 euros the three days.

Later, in the evening, Hasna Aït Boulahcen recalls Jawad. "It was about duvets, and only duvets," he swears, pointing out that there were none in the squat he rented. After that, he went to see Laura K., his ex-girlfriend. "We went on the run all night long, until 4 am and afterwards I used cocaine," he says, annoyed, at the president who puts it, since the beginning of the hearing, face its contradictions. "It's me who lived all this, you were not there," he says annoyed. "You speak a lot but you are not always very clear," retorts the magistrate. The next afternoon, Hasna recontacts him.

"It looked like little lost kids"

Jawad asks him to come in the evening, rue du Corbillon. "I was stoned. I had tapped coke rails, I had calculated that I needed 5 or 6 hours to go back down. The president wants to know why, at the time, he was using so much drugs. "I was not feeling well," he says. He had money problems, his relationship with his companion at the time was complicated and a "girl of 91" had just announced that she was pregnant and that she did not want to abort. Around 22:30, he finally found his customers, caps PSG screwed on the head. "It looked like little lost kids, it was like they were scared of me …"

Curiously, Jawad did not really try to find out more about these intriguing characters who only wanted to "drink, eat and pray". He did not even ask them what their name was. "In our neighborhoods, curiosity is a bad thing," he continues. "I've always been like that, I do not ask questions. He promises he did not recognize Abaaoud instantly. However, the video showing him driving a pickup truck, dragging bodies somewhere in Syria, had circulated a lot in the prison where he had been imprisoned in another case. It was not until the morning of November 18, when he was taken into custody, that Jawad thought back to these terrible images and "made the connection".

"You hosted the Daesh undertaker"

"The policeman who accompanied me to the cell told me:" You died, you hosted the undertaker of Daesh "". The president points out that around 7 o'clock that morning, while the raid policemen stormed the squat, he made a phone call to his ex-companion, registered by the police. "All the guys on my street yesterday, they were laughing, they said to me, 'You're an egg, you bring some guys
Belgium, two brothers mus "», he confided to him then. "Mus"? People diligent in the practice of their religion, translates it. A little like the catholics who go to the church. … Brother Jacques. "

Why did this non-practicing Muslim call them "brothers"? "In the cities, everyone is called brother. It's like the bourgeois who call each other sir. The president, astonished, replies that it does not have much to do. Jawad did not seem troubled when Abaaoud told him to come back from Belgium. Yet at that time, the link between the terrorists and the Kingdom was established. But the young man says he did not watch the media all weekend. "For us, Belgium is a place where we go to buy cheap drugs, to see prostitutes," he answers seriously.

"I'm going to play the role of a narcotics trafficker"

In the rubble of the squat, police find two rolls of tape used to make explosive belts. Jawad's DNA is on it. "The tape it was at home, I had to take it to tape something," he defends himself. The terrorists had to use it too, he adds. Before proclaiming, "Do you see me, Mr. Judge touching a detonator? ! I have never seen an explosive in my life. "

Since leaving prison, Jawad has been doing nothing. "It's not even worth looking for a job," the defendant breathes. "About 60 million French, there are five million who want to make me skin. To live, he posted restaurant ads on Snapchat for 150 euros. "That's a good thing. He did not touch a single euro from illegal activities. Yet he was offered "big things" that he refused. He's writing a book and maybe going into a series. "I was taken as an actor, I will play the role of a drug dealer. "

The appeal trial of Jawad Bendaoud is held until 21 December. He faces six years in prison and 45,000 euros fine for "concealment of terrorist criminals". He will answer this Thursday the questions of the prosecutor and the lawyers of the civil parties.