• The body of Mohamed Abdelhadi was found in 2016 in a Beaujolais wood, fifteen after his disappearance.

  • Arrested the previous year, the three suspects had admitted the facts.

    However, they were never bothered by the courts since the complaint filed by the victim's family in 2008 was misplaced.

  • The loss of the investigation file by the justice and police services had therefore prevented the interruption of the statute of limitations.

  • Thursday, France recognized its error, the family of the victim now hopes for a trial.

A mistake with serious consequences.

And a rare confession.

The French authorities have acknowledged in writing that the justice and police services had indeed lost the investigation file concerning the disappearance of Mohamed Abdelhadi, murdered at the age of 27 in 2001 in Beaujolais (Rhône).

This Thursday, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) took note of this fault, thus comforting the relatives of the young man who will ask for the reconsideration of the case.

This will make it possible to "question the prescription of the facts" and to prosecute the alleged perpetrators again, underlines Patrice Spinosi, the lawyer for the Mohamed Abdelhadi family.

The man also indicated that he was going to seize the Court of Revision of the Court of Cassation, during a press conference given alongside the three sisters of the victim.

More than ever, they now hope for a trial.

“The Abdelhadi case is far from over.

His family will never stop exhausting the legal remedies available to them so that justice is finally done,” insists their lawyer.

Compensation of 36,000 euros to close the case

France has offered compensation of 36,000 euros to the family in "final settlement" of the case.

"This monetary compensation is obviously not satisfactory," said Patrice Spinosi, denouncing "the major dysfunctions in the investigation" into the disappearance of the young man.

His murder had however been elucidated in March 2015, fourteen after his disappearance, when a woman had denounced her companion.

The person concerned had ended up confessing the facts, confessing to having stabbed to death Mohamed Abdelhadi, with the help of his father.

The two men then hid the body in a cellar before burying it in a Beaujolais wood.

In 2016, the father and his two sons were indicted for murder and complicity.

The first, who recognized the facts, had been imprisoned in stride.

But his lawyer took legal action, considering that the limitation period, which was then ten years from the crime, had been exceeded in the absence of "interrupting act" in the procedure.

The main suspect released without judicial review in 2018

A complaint filed in 2008 could have constituted this act, but this complaint was misplaced by the judicial institution for unknown reasons.

This “resulted in the impossibility of proving an act likely to interrupt the limitation period” and “a violation” of two articles of the ECHR convention, admits the French State when recognizing its error.

In December 2019, the Court of Cassation considered that the search for the complaint having remained in vain, the murder had been prescribed since January 1, 2012. The main suspect had been released in 2018 and is currently "in the wild" without control judicial, according to Rachida Abdelhadi, one of the victim's sisters.

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  • Justice

  • Assassination

  • Cedh

  • Lyons

  • Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes