He had great hopes for this second meeting with an anti-terrorism court. “I have confidence in your justice and in French justice, the country of human rights,” Audrey Mondjehi calmly declared Friday morning, when he addressed a final time to the seven judges of the specially composed assize court. “I love France, I carry Strasbourg gravely in my heart, but I deserve to be condemned for what I have done. »
Throughout the four weeks of hearing in the magnificent Voltaire room of the Paris courthouse, the 44-year-old accused and his four new lawyers worked hard to refute the amalgams. “Audrey is not a terrorist. He loves life when the other loves death,” M.e Jérémy Kalfon. “Cherif Chekatt, this monster, I didn’t know that he was radicalized and that he had planned an attack,” said the forty-year-old again, just before the court withdrew to deliberate on his fate.
“You played a decisive role”
After seven hours of waiting, President Laurent Raviot announced the decision. The same, in all respects, as that rendered on April 4, 2024. Audrey Mondjehi is not guilty of complicity in the assassinations and assassination attempts in relation to a terrorist enterprise perpetrated by Cherif Chekatt. On the other hand, it is fully applicable for the crime of terrorist criminal association.
“You may not have had precise knowledge of the planned attack carried out on December 11, 2018,” explained the president. But, however, you had every means of knowing that he had a terrorist attack in mind, and that by providing him with a weapon and ammunition, you were serving this terrorist project. You played a decisive role. »
The 44-year-old rapper, originally from the Hautepierre district, received the same sentence as during the first trial: 30 years of criminal imprisonment, with a security period set at two-thirds. Upon his release from detention, the Ivorian forty-year-old will have to return to his native country, the court having pronounced against him, as was done at first instance, a definitive ban from French territory.
Audrey Mondjehi, who provided terrorist Cherif Chekatt with the weapon he used, was sentenced to 30 years in prison at the appeal trial for the Strasbourg attack, April 17, 2026. Court drawing Nero
“The mountain was high”
This “extremely serious” sentence is firstly justified in view of the terrible toll of the attack. Five men lost their lives – Bartek Orent-Niedzielski, Antonio Megalizzi, Kamal Naghchband, Pascal Verdenne and Anupong Suebsamarn – eleven people were injured, most seriously, many others traumatized.
The judges could have reduced the quantum of 30 years but nothing in Audrey Mondjehi encouraged them to show leniency. His lengthy criminal record, his “antisocial attitude”, his incessant lies, his “lack of awareness of his responsibility”, his detention peppered with incidents, all of this weighed heavily, said Laurent Raviot.
Me Jérémy Kalfon, one of Audrey Mondjehi’s lawyers during her appeal trial. Photo Vincent Voegtlin
“It is clear that the mountain was very high,” reacted Me Kalfon, very disappointed after the verdict. “It has been eight years since this procedure began. Audrey Mondjehi has been heard many times, each time leaving impressions, each more detestable than the last. It is complicated, over a four-week audience, to correct a positioning, an attitude which for years was not the right one. »
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