January 2015 attacks: Makhlouf's defense pleads acquittal for lack of evidence
Drawing representing the fourteen defendants and their lawyers, the first day of the trial of the January 2015 attacks. BENOIT PEYRUCQ / AFP
Text by: RFI Follow
3 min
The defense pleadings continue at the trial of the January 2015 attacks with that in particular, this Friday, of Saïd Makhlouf.
Against this 31-year-old ex-paramedic, implicated in the search for weapons and whose DNA was found on a Coulibaly taser, the prosecution requested 13 years in prison.
His defense demands an acquittal.
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With our special correspondent at the Special Assize Court of Paris,
Laura Martel
Zoé Royaux is indignant: “
After 4 years of instruction and three months of hearing, we still cannot demonstrate to you what the logistical support is,
begins the lawyer.
When the prosecution says "I think", but it's too late to think, you have to prove, demonstrate.
Doubt is not 13 years, it is acquittal.
This is the rule of law,
”exclaims the lawyer.
Saïd Makhlouf, she points out, has only crossed Coulibaly twice.
“
They didn't know each other.
So we had to find a link,
she says,
and this hyphen is Ramdani.
The prosecution, recalls the lawyer, considers that as Makhlouf was very close to Ramdani, himself a friend of
Coulibaly
, Makhlouf could not ignore the terrorist's ideology.
"
Is that the charge, counter psychology?"
With terrorist intent established by friendly proxy?
“Thunders the lawyer.
She moves on to the trips of her client and Ramdani in the north.
"
The prosecution explains that they correspond to deliveries of weapons, but we do not have the dates of the deliveries
" and "
no proof that the trips concerned weapons, nothing
", takes offense Mr. Royaux.
As for the DNA of
Saïd Makhlouf
found on the taser: "
My client has no explanation, but neither does the prosecution ... and we are told that a secondary transfer is possible
", sweeps the lawyer.
For her, the prosecution got it wrong from the start in this case and seeks to make it hold at all costs.
"
But requisitions is not embroidery
"
,
exclaimed the lawyer who castigates
"
intellectual dishonesty filth
" of the floor.
"
The law and the evidence will protect you from miscarriage of justice
", launched Me Royaux to the court, asking for an acquittal: "
We trust you, Mr. Makhlouf too.
"
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France
Justice
Terrorism
Paris attacks
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