In Saint-Aubin-le-Dépeint, nobody really knows what triggered the fratricidal war. This is remembered by the inhabitants of this village of 350 inhabitants, located on the borders of Touraine and Sarthe, were flames that ravaged the fruit farm of the Grandes Bertières, the night of November 14, 2024.
Without the intervention of the firefighters, the fire declared in an uninhabited house in the heart of the hamlet could have spread and destroy nearly 4,000 tonnes of apples stored under the Hangar of Vergers Launay, only a few meters away.
“Everyone quickly thought that he had set fire to the house himself in order to burn the fruit station at the same time”enlightens James, the youngest of the two brothers, propelled to the cogerance of the company following the father.
In the carcass of calcined stone, broken window from the interior, the criminal track has never made a shadow of a doubt, at least two fire starts being identified by the technicians in criminal identification of the gendarmerie.
“The fireworks that ends all our stories”
This rustic shack, Josian had bought it in the spring after having added to the offer made by his older brother. Since then, he had stored materials there and projected, according to his version, to retype to host a friend, former employee of the orchards.
After having filed a complaint a few hours after the fire – “To hide the fact that it was me” And, perhaps, orient the suspicions towards his rival-the forties ended up recognizing having lit the fire.
Five months later “The fireworks that ends all our stories”the two brothers met one last time, Wednesday April 30, 2025 in Tours. In a courtroom. “I do not yet fully explain my gesture, but I couldn’t take it anymore: this conflict mine from the inside, it had to stop. That evening, it invaded me and I crackedassume Josian, 49 ans. I said to myself: “I’m going to burn the barrack and we will talk about it anymore”. »»
Since 2020, their lives have been enamelled with around fifty reciprocal complaints, filed for violence, threats or endangering the life of others. “It has started with trifles but for months we say that it will end with a gunshot and a trial before an assize court”deplores me Émeric Desnoix, James lawyer, “Harlled”, “Like all site employees”by Josian’s acts.
50,000 euros fine
The context, loaded, makes it possible to sketch the contours of an operating mode which, no doubt, was intended, by propagation, to nibble on the brother’s Hangar of the brother. “We can imagine a mobile, anything is possibleconceded Me Abed Bendjador son, Josian council, before confining himself to speaking straight. But it takes elements in this procedure which come to prove his intention and his guilt: if he had wanted to burn the hangar, as much to set fire directly, suggests the lawyer. He tells you that that evening he farted a bolt and that he destroyed his own house. But for the hangar, we don’t know! »»
Six months in prison had been required by the prosecution against his client. Josian left the Relaxed Justice Palace of the attempt to destroy his brother’s hangar but weighted with a heavy fine. It is set at 50,000 euros. The price to pay for trying to defraud his insurance company, which had flared fraud before paying the bonus linked to the disaster.
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