It wasn’t the deadliest attack in Europe linked to the Islamic State 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, reports ABC News.
On Monday, a trial opened 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 on trial for complicity to terrorism-related murder, complicity to kidnapping and terrorist conspiracy. Aberouz, who says he is innocent, faces up to life in prison if convicted.
The killings came amid a wave of attacks in France linked to the Islamic State 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.
“All of us are watching this trial,’’ Denis Jacob, general secretary of the police union Alternative Police Nationale, said on BFM television as the trial began.