About

Le Logeur du Daesh, also known by his variant Le Logeur de Daesh (Daesh's Landlord in English) is the nickname given to Jawad Bendaoud, a man who housed several men in his apartment linked to the 2015 Paris attacks. Following the attack, a news clip featuring Bendaoud professing ignorance of the terrorist plot was subsequently released online, spawning a novelty twitter account and parody videos mocking his defense.

Origin

On the morning of November 18th, 2015, the French police raided an apartment in Saint-Denis, a town north of Paris, France, which allegedly sheltered several people linked to the November 13th terrorist attacks In Paris.The raid resulted in two people dead and eight more arrested. Before tenant Jawad Bendaoud was taken into police custody, he was briefly interviewed by a BFM TV News crew and claimed he had no knowledge he was harboring terrorists (shown below).^[1]

Transcript:

Q: Did you learn that it was happening at your apartment?
A: Yes, I did.
Q: What do you mean?
A: Well, I learnt that it (the raid) was at my house and that the individuals barricated themselves at my house and that's it. I didn't know that they were terrorists.
Q: And… please explain, where do you live?
A: I live Rue Du Corbillon, where they fired.
Q: And how do you explain that these people stayed at your house?
A: Someone asked me to do a favor and that's what I did, sir. One asked me to accomodate two persons for three days and I provided this service. I didn't know where they came from. I don't know anything, sir. Do you think I would have accomodated them if I knew?
Q: Did you know they were coming from Belgium?
A: No. The police told me about it this morning.
Q: Okay.
A: I learnt about it the same way as you did.
Q: Did you know those people?
A: No, I didn't know them at all. Not even before that.
Bendaoud is seen being taken away by policemen.

Spread

That day, the novelty Twitter, a novelty account "Le Logeur du Daesh"^[2] was created, featuring tweets containing a screenshot of Bendaoud accompanied by captions mocking his defense. In less than 16 hours, the account gained more than 14,000 subscribers. Following its surge in popularity, many news sites reported on the twitter account, including Hitek^[3], Konbini^[4], Démotivateur.fr,^[5] Direct Matin^[6] and 20 Minutes.^[7]

On November 19th, a public Facebook event named "Pyjama Party at Jawad's house" was held, attracting upwards of 300 000 people^[10].
That same day, French viral news site MinuteBuzz posted a parody video^[8] on Facebook (shown below), featuring clips from the French comedy movie La Cité de la Peur edited into the Bendaoud interview footage. In less than 24 hours, the video accumulated upwards of one million views.

Meanwhile, the Mikl Officiel Facebook page uploaded another parody video^[9], which garnered over three million views in the first day (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References