France Trial By Terror

By Michael S. Serrill.

It was 10:30 a.m., and the trial of four armed-robbery suspects was under way inside the columned, gray stone courthouse in the city of Nantes. Suddenly the measured pace of the legal proceedings was shattered as a man burst into the courtroom firing shots into the air and brandishing a hand grenade. Judge, jury, lawyers and a roomful of spectators dove for cover under tables and desks. The intruder, later identified as Abdelkarim Khalki, 33, quickly stripped five court officers of their .357 Magnum pistols and turned them over to two of the defendants. The 34 people in the courtroom had become prisoners, and the scene seemed to be set for another sickening hostage tragedy.

As the desperadoes took over the courtroom, said Journalist and Hostage Dominique Guillet upon his release a few hours later, "there was a surreal moment when the hostage takers became the magistrate and the jury." That seemed to be precisely what the leader of the criminal gang, Defendant Georges + Courtois, 38, had in mind when he demanded that television cameras be brought into the courtroom. "You have been judging me," the gaunt Courtois said with icy calm. "Now it is our turn to judge you." Waving a pistol and smoking a cigar, he launched into a lengthy harangue, warning that the "slightest attempt" by police to intervene would mean bloodshed. His words were quickly broadcast to spellbound TV viewers all over France.

Courtois introduced an ominous political twist to the proceedings by announcing that he had met Khalki, a Moroccan who espouses the Palestinian cause, when the two were in prison together. "He explained his political battle to me," said Courtois. "Rather than waste my time spending x number of years in prison, I decided to ally myself with his cause." Khalki, who until three weeks ago had been serving time for robbing a post office, then took the floor and proclaimed his allegiance to the Abu Nidal terrorist group, a maverick Palestinian band that is aligned with Libya. Extremely agitated, the grenade-juggling Khalki told his television audience that he wanted to "give the French state a slap in the face."

In the meantime, a heavily armed phalanx of more than 200 police equipped with bulletproof vests and including a special antiterror unit from Paris had surrounded the courthouse and begun talks with the terrorists. Less than seven hours after the drama had begun, negotiators, led by Paris Police Prefect Robert Broussard, had secured the release of almost half the hostages, including a group of law students who were observing the trial and two defendants who chose not to take part in the uprising. Throughout the night, the terrorists continued releasing hostages. By late Friday morning only four remained: Presiding Judge Dominique Bailhache, two assistant judges and a prosecutor. Then Courtois, handcuffed at the wrist to Bailhache, emerged from the courthouse and, with judge in tow, paced up and down for almost half an hour. At one point he yelled angrily to police and journalists, "Go away, I don't want to see you." He then fired four shots toward the crowd, sending the onlookers sprawling and shattering a television-camera lens.

No one was hurt. Thirty minutes later, the kidnapers and their captives climbed into a police-supplied Renault minivan and drove off to the Nantes airport. There they parked on a runway and released two of the remaining hostages. Further talks with Broussard convinced the three that even if they commandeered a plane, they had nowhere to go. Courtois, said Broussard afterward, "realized that he was at an impasse." Finally he, Khalki and the third kidnaper, Patrick Thiolet, drove to the airport terminal and surrendered, after Khalki was assured he could return to Morocco. Courtois sneered one last time at reporters, calling them "parasites."

With reporting by Adam Zagorin/Nantes