For the judge, the Tarnac affair is not a terrorist folder – The World

Le Monde | 08/08/2015 at 5:42 p.m. • Updated 09/08/2015 to 0:38 | By Soren Seelow

It took seven years. Seven years of erratic and politicized investigation to excess to achieve one of the most resounding derailments of the antiterrorist justice. Friday, August 7, the investigating judge in charge of the sabotage the investigation of several TGV lines in 2008 said, against the opinion of the prosecutor that the case known Tarnac – the name of the village where gravitated corrézien After a small community of the anarcho-autonomous movement – was not a terrorist case

The magistrate, Jeanne Duyé, decided to refer four band members, including its main leader Julien Coupat before a. Criminal Court for “criminal association”, rejecting the aggravating circumstance of “terrorist enterprise” claimed by the prosecution. Four other people are referred for refusing to give their DNA and, for two of them, for “administrative documents falsification” .

For the Public Ministry, the order referral is a scathing repudiation. In his indictment of May 6, the prosecution had asked that the aggravating circumstance of “terrorist enterprise” is retained against three major indicted: Julien Coupat, his girlfriend and his Yildune Levy ex-girlfriend Gabrielle Hallez

Read:. Tarnac: the floor requires the return of Julien Coupat Correctional terrorism

The instruction judge probably sweeps definitely the specter of terrorism hovering since the beginning of the investigation into the sabotage. “After nearly seven years of load instruction, we finally have a courageous court decision. That is a total repudiation parquet “, reacted Dosed Marie and William Bourdon, lawyer of the accused.

The” quack Tarnac “

This case had its genesis when aroused great controversy, the government and the interior minister at the time, Michèle Alliot-Marie, is suspected of exploiting its terrorist nature. This politicization of the issue so that Nicolas Sarkozy intervened was preparing to create the Central Directorate of Internal Intelligence (DCRI), born 1 ^st in July 2008 from the merger of General Intelligence Directorate with surveillance territory. A coincidence which had fueled the suspicion of a terrorist case “inflated” tailored to the new platform of the intelligence services.

On May 30, 2009, Francois Hollande, then president of the General Council of Corrèze where is Tarnac, in turn had taken a position in an article published on Slate: “It is becoming increasingly clear that the qualification of terrorism has been used unwisely” , he wrote, evoking by turns a “police ratage” and “judicial recantation” , before summarizing his thoughts of a shock sentence: “The quack is Tarnac became a political issue. “

Read also: Tarnac: when François Hollande denounced a” political case “

” seriously Disturbing order public “

The terrorist intent lent by the prosecution to members of the Tarnac group did not rest on the danger of sabotage. By the admission of experts, installing a hook on a catenary – a device borrowed the techniques of German anti-nuclear activists in the 1990s – can not affect passenger safety. The Crown considered by contrast, based on article 421-1 of the criminal code that “damage to property” may constitute acts of terrorism for some they have “intended to seriously disturb public order by intimidation or terror” .

This will “seriously disturbing public order “, the prosecution motivated by ideology and the relations of members of the Tarnac group with ” international anarchist movement. ” The pivot of the accusation was based on the writings of Julien Coupat, considered the “primary feather” – what it has always denied – a “pamphlet” entitled The Coming Insurrection , published in 2007 by the Invisible Committee.

“The instrumentalization” of a book

This text calls for a “organized blocking communication routes” , the first of which the railways by groups that have adopted a community lifestyle to bring down “the stream architecture” what became the modern world. For the prosecution, the “booklet presented false blissful way by several witnesses as a simple philosophy book” was actually a theoretical guide to “overthrow the state violence” .

Dans their remarks on this indictment sent June 5 to judge Jeanne Duyé, MMe William Bourdon and Marie Dosed denouncing “instrumentalization” of this book , they reminded opportunely, “has never been the subject of prosecution” , which may indeed surprise for a terrorist booklet. Denouncing “impotence prosecutors to articulate a shred of evidence of the sufficiency of after seven years of fierce intellectual construction” , they asked a general dismissed.

The investigating judge was not until then. It found that there was sufficient evidence to hold a trial for sabotage. The prosecution has five days after signing the order to appeal to the investigating chamber.