Police vans in all the streets, armed CRS patrolling, streets blocked to traffic, the Place du Parlement de Bretagne, in Rennes, has looked like an entrenched camp since Tuesday, January 14. The reason? A sensitive trial has started in the Ille-et-Vilaine Assize Court. For nine days, seven men, aged 25 to 41, were tried there for acts linked to drug trafficking in Nantes in 2019.
Series of score settlings in Nantes in 2019
Facts which are part of a war between two clans involved in drug trafficking between Nantes and Morocco. Named “Gomorra”, in reference to Roberto Saviano’s book on the Neapolitan mafia, “Gomorra. In the empire of the Camorra, this case was entrusted to the Specialized Interregional Jurisdiction of Rennes. Which explains the location of the trial, in Rennes and not in Loire-Atlantique.
In 2019, Nantes was the scene of several dozen settlements linked to drug trafficking. Settling of scores in which the accused present in Rennes would be involved, directly or indirectly. The court will thus examine the attack on a clan leader, injured on the night of April 4 to 5, 2019, in Nantes, but also shootings on the night of April 18 to 19 in the Bellevue district, between Saint-Herblain and Nantes, and finally gunshots in the same neighborhood a few days later, on the night of April 21 to 22, where several men injured four people.
The men tried since Tuesday, three of whom are currently incarcerated, are accused, to varying degrees, of attempted murder or complicity in attempted murder, or for criminal conspiracy and possession of category A and B weapons and ammunition. Three others are being prosecuted for related crimes.
“When you have hooded police officers in the box, it sets the scene”
A trial under close surveillance, since inside and outside the assize court, the security system is impressive. A sign of the tension reigning on the first floor of Parliament, where the hearings are being held, the lawyer for one of the defendants, this Tuesday morning, challenged in court that one of the key witnesses be heard by videoconference. An absence justified by the fact, according to the president, that the extraction of this witness, detained at Vezin-le-Coquet prison, presented high security risks.
“It creates a climate of tension,” regrets a lawyer for one of the accused. When you have hooded police officers in the box, it sets the scene. » “I consider this system disproportionate, extraordinary, in a trial for which the facts are contested,” adds Maître Claire Abello, lawyer for another accused. That doesn't seem justified to me. »
The tension should last a little longer around the Parliament of Brittany. The “Gomorra” trial will continue until Friday January 24.
