France 2 foreign correspondent Gilles Jacquier was one of the first Western journalists to be killed in Syria, in January 2012, as he and a regime-sanctioned delegation of reporters were allowed into the battleground city of Homs. Damascus blames his death on a mortar fired by rebels at his location in Zahira, an Alawite neighborhood of Homs. But now his widow, Caroline Poiron, who was with Jacquier the day he died, has just published a book, Attentat Express: Qui a Tue Gilles Jacquier?, in which she concludes that her husband was in fact murdered by the Syrian mukhabarat. NOW interviewed Poiron about her findings.
Why do you believe that the murder of your husband was premeditated and "commissioned"? What purpose did it serve, in your judgment?
There's always multiple reasons. What was said and what is evident is that Gilles was there at the right time and the right moment for the regime. Killing him was a message sent to France, to the Arab League, and to the rebels. It was three birds with one stone. In November [2011], when Gilles asked for a visa from Damascus, nothing had yet been planned. But then it crescendoed. His murder was planned because the regime needed a distraction at that time. There were 175 journalists "officially" in Syria. There was the Arab League, about 80 or so men to manage. And there was an operation trying to be organized to take out the rebels from Baba Amr. The regime had already been trying to kill Anwar Malek, the Algerian delegate from the Arab League who defected when he saw how the League's mission was being manipulated in Syria.
The Arab League report on Gilles' death states: "Mission reports from Homs indicate that the French journalist was killed by opposition mortar shells."
The original Arab League report was first sent to Damascus and it said that Assef Shawkat [Bashar's brother-in-law and the regime's powerful security chief, technically Minister of Defense, who was assassinated in July 2012] told the Mission that rebels killed Gilles. Damascus made the League remove that from the report. We spoke to three Arab League delegates from the Mission who confirmed this to us. It's in the book. The French investigation is still going on. If you talk to Eric Chevallier, the French ambassador to Syria, or to the French Defense Ministry, they will all tell you that France has made no determination on who killed Gilles. They need to send experts in Homs. So the [French] judge asked the Syrians to organize a group there. But justice moves very slowly in France.
You've said that Maher al-Assad, Assef Shawkat, Ali Mamluk, and Michel Samaha, who has been arrested in Lebanon for planning "terrorist" operations on the orders of Syrian intelligence, are all responsible for Gilles' murder. Can you explain why? How did you identify them all?
Samaha was paranoid. For years, he'd recorded all his conversations with everyone he ever spoke to. When the lebanese secret service came into Samaha's house, they found millions of hours of recordings, even many with his wife. The Lebanese secret service told me this. There were talks between Samaha and Gilles. It was how Gilles got his visa. Samaha was also in Damascus and met Gilles. I was there. He smiled at me. When you meet Samaha, you know this man has blood on his hand. He organized all the propaganda in the Christian quarter [of Damascus] for us to film. There was a Christian fixer, Mother Mary Agnes [a Carmelite nun notorious for spreading pro-Assad propaganda] working for the regime who eventually put us on the bus to Homs. She forced Gilles to go on the bus to film a report.
Gilles had tried everyone he could think of to get into Syria. He sent letters to the Ministry of Information, the Ministry of Defense, the Republican Guard. He wanted to be embedded in the Fourth Armored Division led by Maher al-Assad. But Maher doesn't like journalists, he's a person who uses violence in any case. Because Gilles' name popped up on a list, because they needed to send a message, they chose him.
We later questioned the Arab League observers, three of them. They spent 30 days in Homs and told us that in the hotel, where were staying, was also Assef Shawkat, preparing the demolition of Baba Amr. Shawkat always travels with 30 men around him, so there were all mukhabarat in the hotel, no one else. What was strange to us is that Gilles' room was on the same floor as Shawkat's, the fifth floor, yet all other journalists were staying on third or fourth floors. No one ever went to the fifth floor. We didn't even know when we traveled to Homs that Shawkat was in our hotel. If Gilles had known this, he wouldn't have gone out; he'd have stayed and interviewed Shawkat. But otherwise, we only brought a little bag with us to Homs. Gilles didn't want to stay in the hotel, he wanted to go to the frontline with the Syrian Army. And that's what we did.
Shawkat wanted to meet to Gilles, either to spy on him or to interrogate him. Gilles was considered a spy. There's a video the rebels obtained from the man they say is the the killer of Gilles. We don't know if it's real, but the [supposed killer] says on the video that when he has a mission, he gets a name and the reason why he kills the person - on paper, it says ‘Gilles Jacquier, agent.'
