The French jihadist Mehdi Nemmouche "is not the killer" of the Jewish Museum in Brussels, where four people were murdered in May 2014, said Tuesday his lawyers presenting their lines of defense to the foundations of the Belgian capital.
Absence of DNA. On the third day of the trial, one of his counsel, Mr. Henri Laquay, asked the jurors to "order his acquittal". "Mehdi Nemmouche is not the person who pressed the trigger during the execution", he "is not the killer," said Mr. Laquay, beginning the reading of the defense act that replies to theses of the accusation. The lawyer's proof of this is that the DNA of Mehdi Nemmouche was not found on the door handle of the museum, yet "strongly and violently" seized by the killer from images of video surveillance.
"He is not the killer." According to Mr. Laquay, there was, as of May 27, 2014, three days after the killing, "12 DNA samples" on this handle and none was positive. "It's not him (Mehdi Nemmouche, editor's note) who manipulated the door during the killing, [...] he is not the killer," insisted Mr. Laquay This is the first time the defense the main defendant had to speak to the jury on the merits of the case since the opening of the trial on 10 January.
At a preliminary hearing in December, the defense had already noted that this trial was an opportunity for Nemmouche to "finally see his innocence recognized." Another element likely to exculpate the defendant according to his defense: he has opposed "no resistance" during his arrest on his descent from a bus in Marseille six days after the killing, argued Mr. Laquay.
In cold blood. In this trial that could last until March 1, Mehdi Nemmouche, 33, and an alleged accomplice, Nacer Bendrer, 30, both French, must answer for "terrorist murders". They incur a prison sentence for life. Mehdi Nemmouche is accused of killing in cold blood in less than a minute and a half a couple of Israeli tourists, a French volunteer and a young Belgian employee of the museum, on May 24, 2014.
Nacer Bendrer is suspected of providing him with weapons. For the civil parties the material elements collected against them in four years of investigation are "overwhelming".