Four months in prison with an immediate committal warrant as well as a ban on French territory (ITF) for a period of three years. This is the sentence handed down this Monday, November 25 by the Bayonne judicial court against a 23-year-old Algerian national, arrested in an irregular situation last Saturday in Urrugne. Already convicted five times in the past for theft, the individual has been subject to a travel ban since October 2020. His lawyer denounced a situation which resembles “a bottomless pit“, while Deputy Public Prosecutor Stephanie Veyssiere requested six months in prison and an ITF of three years against the defendant.
Play cat and mouse
Abderrahim was arrested on Saturday November 23 at 11:15 a.m. without any papers on him. Placed in police custody, the Algerian was presented in court this Monday early in the afternoon. At the bar of the court, he explains:“I live in a Red Cross home in Irun, but it no longer has room for me, so I came to eat and take a shower in France.” Except that by crossing the border between the two countries, the accused knows very well that he finds himself in an irregular situation, having been sentenced to a stay ban in Bordeaux on October 7, 2020. Since then, he has continued to play cat and mouse with the police.
“Algeria does not issue passes”
His lawyer highlights the inextricable situation in which Abderrahim finds himself. “It’s a world of misery, idleness and wandering” deplores Me Faridha Hadidi. The lawyer says “the delinquent's journey since the age of 14 when he left Algeria and his hometown of Oran to today work undeclared in a restaurant in the Col d'Ibardin”. According to Me Faridha Hadidi, the young man has very little chance of returning to his country “who does not issue passes” especially in the context of the currently tense relations between France and Algeria. “It’s a story that starts again forever” concludes the lawyer.
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