Par
Gael Arcuset
Published on
Nov. 27 2024 at 12:02 a.m
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A new “painful moment” for the patients of Bassam El Absi. The former radiologist from Langon and Béguey (Gironde), appears on appeal to the Angoulême courtfrom Friday November 29 and until Friday December 6.
Continued for sexual assault and rape on several patients, Bassam El Absi was found guilty by the Assize Court of Gironde, in February 2023, following a trial which saw a succession of testimonies from around fifteen women at the bar.
He then received 17 years of criminal imprisonment and was ordered to pay 190,425 euros to the various civil parties. But he quickly appealed.
A new ordeal for El Absi patients
This Friday will therefore open a new chapter of the “El Absi affair”. “It is always difficult for victims to start a procedure again,” attests Me Sylvie Reulet, lawyer for one of the civil parties who will plead her 275e case at the Assizes.
It's very intrusive. It is about the intimate lives of these women, victims of a man who took advantage of his position as a doctor to commit actions that were anything but medical.
El Absi released: the incomprehension of his former patients
In September 2023, after having passed seven months behind barsBassam El Absi, removed from the Order of Physicians since 2019, had benefited from release.
However, he had to submit to several obligations: respect his judicial control by reporting to the police station, not be in the Langon sector and never come into contact with the victims.
When the release of the man nicknamed “the pasha” was announced, many of them expressed their incomprehension. “They were all outragedconfirms Me Sylvie Reulet. He was sentenced to seventeen years and found himself out six months later. It was very violent for them. »
In prison, El Absi “hurt” his lawyer
At the time, Me Alexandre Novion, who defended Bassam El Absi, explained to Republican South-Gironde that his client's state of health was “greatly deteriorating” because of his imprisonment.
“To survive in this prison, you have to exert a lot of energy that a 70-year-old man doesn't have. Whatever he may or may not have done, he caused pain. It is also for this human reason that the investigating chamber gave its agreement,” assured Me Novion who, according to our information, will not represent the former radiologist at the Angoulême court.
Family Planning present in court
The Family Planning of Gironde, which had already demonstrated in Bordeaux during the first trial of Bassam El Absi, traveled to Angoulême. He will be present, from 8 a.m., Friday November 29 in the judicial court. “For decades this radiologist had been able to weave his predatory web by creating the conditions for recognition as an honorable and helpful professional, including by his peers, since the medical order, contacted on several occasions, did not see fit to suspend him, except when the courts were seized and ended up striking him off when he retired,” denounces Family Planning in a press release.
How will Bassam El Absi approach this new meeting with justice? This is one of the essential components in this matter.
Because his behavior, at the Bordeaux court in February 2023, had particularly annoyed the president of the Assize Court. The latter had deemed it “inadmissible” and had called on the former radiologist to “show respect”.
New complaints against El Absi
Contacted by The South-Gironde RepublicanMe Pierre Sirgue, lawyer for Bassam El Absi, does not wish to express himself. He wishes to “reserve his observations for the court”, says one of his collaborators.
Another thing to note: judicial information was opened after the filing of new complaints for rapes committed between 2012 and 2018.
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