Rouen: a minor sentenced to 12 years imprisonment for murder

Europe 1 with AFP 8:15 p.m., November 26, 2021

A minor of 15 years old at the time of the facts was sentenced Friday in Rouen during a closed trial to twelve years of criminal imprisonment for the murder of a 46-year-old man in 2019, we learned from two lawyers.

The prosecution had required eighteen years.

The young man will also be subject to socio-judicial monitoring for five years and he is prohibited from holding a weapon for seven years.

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The young man "expressed regret"

During this trial opened Wednesday before the juvenile court ruling on criminal matters, the young man "expressed regret".

But he denied being the author of the fatal blows, told AFP Laura Kalfon, his lawyer, and Fabien Picchiottino, the lawyer for the victim's family, a chef.

For the lawyer of the victim's family, "the sentence does not take into account the gravity of the facts or the personality of the minor. The family is shocked", declared Me Picchiottino after the verdict.

For the defense lawyer, "it is a sentence that seems fair to us. The court took into account the regrets of the accused, his extremely difficult childhood."

"The court understood that my client was not the driving force behind the violence leading to death," added Kalfon.

Another person, aged 17 at the time of the facts, will subsequently appear before the juvenile assize court for the same facts, according to Me Picchiottino.

The young man tried "admitted to having struck several blows, while explaining that he was not the author of the fatal stone throws", explained the defense lawyer.

The examination Thursday of the minor's personality showed, according to her, that the young man "was the victim of abuse", suffering "physical violence" from his mother.

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A young person who arrived "without landmarks" in Rouen

Arrived in metropolitan France, the young Martinique "found himself without a landmark in Rouen where he had bad encounters," she continued. The drama occurred in 2019 in the gardens of Rouen town hall "between two and three in the morning", according to Me Picchiottino. "It's an outburst of violence, they beat him. They used a blunt object, a priori a large stone (...) They leave him dead and naked".

The young man is being prosecuted for aggravated murder "because he is accused of having killed to steal the victim", his phone in particular, had specified Me Kalfon.

"We found the other minor with the victim's personal effects. Nothing was found on my client," she said, however.

His client is also being prosecuted for two other assaults the same night, before the murder.

According to Me Picchiottino, with three or four other young people, they attacked for no particular reason a young man who will spend several days in the hospital, then a couple.

The young man escaped twice from the closed educational center since his arrest, according to lawyers.