A mother, her three-year-old twins playing in a room, and the cleaning lady ironing in a room. At the start of the afternoon in December 2021, calm reigns in this apartment on rue Falguière (Paris 15th arrondissement). Until men in black, hooded, burst in and kidnapped the mother and the domestic worker for a little less than an hour.
From this Monday until November 22, the Paris Assize Court will judge Aziz C., 23, and Daly O., 24, for armed robbery, kidnapping and sequestration. A third man, Emmanuel M., 25, who admitted to being the driver of the two burglars, will be alongside them in the accused box.
On December 28, 2021, Marion Z. was found on rue Falguière at the home of her parents, who were absent. At 2:17 p.m., the doorbell rang. When she opened the door, two masked men, gloved and armed with a rifle, according to her account, rushed into the apartment. The victim was “immediately restrained using an electric cable found on site, taken to a bedroom, gagged with a kitchen towel, blinded with a piece of clothing placed over his head and thrown on the bed in the parental bedroom,” recalls the indictment. Irina B., the housekeeper, suffers the same fate.
“Where is the gentleman with the gold chains?” »
“Where are the jewels?” », “Where is the gentleman with the gold chains? », “If you want to live, tell me where their treasure is”, the two intruders aggressively threaten. The victims both described a weapon that was “long, thin and had a reservoir on the bottom.” Which will make the investigating judge say that the burglars were armed with a shotgun. Marion Z. denounces several blows to the head perpetrated with this weapon. According to her account, she will even be threatened with having her finger cut off if she does not speak. The criminals are looking for jewelry and valuables.
At 3 p.m., the two men ran out of the building and climbed into their driver's car parked in the street. As they flee, they come across a neighbor's daughter who is worried. As she rushes upstairs to “check that everything is okay”, she finds the door to the 7th floor apartment ajar and allows herself to enter, given the “mess inside”. It is she who finds the two victims, “curled up”, still tied up and blinded with a cloth. “Particularly shocked”, they will be issued 30 days of temporary work interruption (ITT) for the mother, one day for the domestic worker.
The loot is paltry. In total, the criminals managed to get their hands on 1,500 euros in cash, jewelry and two computers, two cell phones and a camera.
On semi-release, one of the attackers returned to La Santé prison the same evening
It was by identifying the black sedan which allowed the criminals to flee and then by exploiting the telephone data that the investigators from the 3rd judicial police district traced back to Aziz C., Daly O. and Emmanuel M. The three alleged accomplices are arrested in March 2022, three months after the events. All three have very extensive criminal records, up to nine convictions for Emmanuel M. Funny detail, the latter, incarcerated at the Santé prison after convictions in 2018, was benefiting from a semi-freedom regime at the time of the events . In compliance with this sentence modification measure, on the evening of the burglary, his accomplice dropped him off in front of the Parisian penitentiary establishment so that he could return to his cell…
Interviewed several times by investigators and then by the investigating judge, Daly O. denies any involvement in the crime. As did Aziz C. initially. But this Parisian, from a “stable family environment” but who says he was in “bad company” and made “youthful mistakes”, ends up recognizing his presence in the apartment on rue Falguière. However, he denies having brought a weapon there.
« My client admitted the facts as part of the investigation which was carried out. Just as he has, on several occasions, expressed his regrets to two victims, assures Me Lola Dubois, who defends Aziz C. Nevertheless, we continue to fervently refute the presence of a weapon in the absence of all material elements which would tend to establish that the accused were carrying a weapon on the day of the events. »
The victims still “haunted”
Same recognition of the facts for Emmanuel M., this young man who has always lived between France and the Congo: upon his arrest, he admitted to having been the driver of the duo of burglars, without, he said, knowing the exact nature of the project.
The victims of the trio will not be present at the trial, announces their counsel Me Elsa Crozatier. The children’s mother, his client, “is very afraid of seeing the faces of her attackers. She doesn’t want to have an image of them,” explains the lawyer. “She’s already haunted by these people.” As for the cleaning lady, “she is scared, traumatized. She was already frail, she is even more fragile,” notes Me Crozatier.
