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A French court opened a trial on Monday against the suspected accomplice of the man who in 2016 killed a police couple at their home outside Paris in front of their child in a crime that shocked the country.
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It wasn’t the deadliest attack in Europe linked to the Islamic State (IS) group, but it was among the most disturbing: One evening in 2016, an assailant killed two police officers in their family home, in front of their 3-year-old son.
On Monday, a trial opens in a French counterterrorism court over the attack in the Paris suburb of Magnanville.
The attacker, Larossi Abballa, was shot to death by police. According to court documents, he told police negotiators that he was responding to an IS leader’s call to “kill miscreants at home with their families.”
A childhood friend of Abballa’s, Mohamed Aberouz, is going on trial for complicity to terrorism-related murder, complicity to kidnapping and terrorist conspiracy. He faces up to life in prison if convicted.
The killings came amid a wave of attacks in France linked to the IS group and had a lasting effect on police officers around France. Some moved, changed services or resigned to protect their loved ones after the Magnanville killings.
According to court documents, Abballa broke into the home of police officers Jessica Schneider and Jean-Baptiste Salvaing before they returned from work. When Schneider came home, Abballa slit her throat in the living room, with the child present.
The father texted her from the office to say “I’m leaving,” the documents say. There was no response. He was stabbed upon arriving home.
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