The Assize Court of Appeal of Nièvre reduced, on the night of Friday to Saturday, the sentences pronounced against three men accused of the murder of a young fast-food employee, found with his skull smashed in 1999 in Vierzon (Cher).
After two weeks of trial and nearly seven hours of deliberation, the jurors sentenced Bouchaïb Mohib to 18 years of criminal imprisonment, against a 20-year sentence imposed in April 2021 by the Assize Court of Cher, Driss Belkhouribchia to 16 years (also against 20) and Samir Berkani at 14 (against 18).
The Advocate General, Vincent Bonnefoy, had requested the same sentences as at first instance for the death of Mathieu Hocquet.
Aged 22, he had been kidnapped on the night of July 12 to 13, 1999, then beaten to death, his skull shattered by a stone.
Homophobic murder or failed burglary?
The investigators had followed the trail of a homophobic murder - the young man being openly homosexual - then that of a settling of scores linked to narcotics.
But the mystery remained for 18 years, until March 2017, when an anonymous witness - and who remains so today - gave names and a motive: Mathieu Hocquet was allegedly kidnapped by four men to recover the keys to the safe. containing the fast food recipe.
One of them, Cyril Bourguignon, had then confessed to having served as a driver, without more, and had denounced the others for the murder.
Sentenced to 12 years by the Assize Court of Cher, he had not appealed, unlike his accomplices.
“Total absence of material elements”
For the defense, which pleaded acquittal, the three defendants would pay for being known to justice as offenders, in a file based on anonymous testimony and the statements of Cyril Bourguignon.
The latter is a “mythomaniac, a trafficker who plays with justice”, accused Archibald Céleyron, lawyer for Bouchaïb Mohib, stressing that this key witness “retracted then retracted”.
Twenty-three years after the facts, the real murderers were not in the box, according to the defense which unsuccessfully requested the referral of the case to the new national center dedicated to unsolved cases, inaugurated near Paris on March 1.
Marie-Alix Canu-Bernard, lawyer for Driss Belkhouribchia, denounced "the total absence of material elements".
"The work of the investigators was not done correctly", pleaded the other lawyer for the accused, Agnès Lowenstein, while Mathieu Chirez, lawyer for Samir Berkani, considered that "other leads should have been preferred ".
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