"Haurus" trial: the former DGSI agent sentenced to five years in prison

"Haurus", the former DGSI agent tried for selling information from protected police files on the darknet, was sentenced Thursday to five years in prison by the Nanterre criminal court.

The prosecution had requested seven years in prison against this 35-year-old former police sergeant, prosecuted for ten counts of offenses including "fraud" and "forgery in an administrative document".

He had admitted the majority of the facts with which he is accused, declaring to have acted out of greed.

A fraudulent activity to "put butter in the spinach"

Found guilty of all these facts, the ex-agent, dressed in a blue polo shirt, left the courtroom handcuffed. His sentence is not adaptable "in order to prevent" new facts and he has the definitive ban to exercise in the public service, declared the president during the deliberation. Arrested in September 2018, he has already spent a year in prison in pre-trial detention. His lawyer, Me Yassine Bouzrou did not wish to speak at the end of the deliberation. He has ten days to appeal this decision.

At the hearing last month, "Haurus" said he had started his illicit darknet activities to "put butter in the spinach", since he was in debt. Prosecutor Catherine Denis, for her part, denounced an "individual devoid of moral sense and scruples" who "betrayed the Republic" and demonstrated a "total lack of remorse". He sold, for remuneration in bitcoins, confidential data extracted from police files to which he had access: identities, addresses, telephone geolocations. According to the prosecution, he carried out 382 illegitimate searches and charged his services between 100 and 300 euros.He could also manufacture himself or help his clients to prepare false administrative documents or false checks.

"I'm not that bad"

At the helm, he explained that he was no longer this "thug" who "sank for ease".

"I am not rotten at that point. I am aware of the harm I have done, it will never happen again," he told the court, describing a form of "addiction" that had him. makes you "lose touch with reality".

He recalled that he had not sold information taken from the intelligence base of the DGSI, "Cristina", and that he had simply used files to which all the police had access. 

His companion, accused of being his accomplice, was sentenced to three years, two of which were suspended but released on the charge of complicity. He came out free. His lawyer Dylan Slama declined to comment but welcomed his release for complicity. One of the clients of "Haurus", also tried by his side - a man known in the field of Marseille banditry - was sentenced to three years in prison with a committal warrant "given his criminal record". He had asked "Haurus" to give him information allowing the location of several people, some of whom were found dead. This part of the case, still under investigation in Marseille, applies to "Haurus"another indictment for passive bribery and criminal association with a view to committing organized gang crimes.