Monday and Tuesday at the Marseille criminal court, the defenses of the main defendants all pleaded for acquittal in the trial of the fatal collapses on rue d’Aubagne. A tragedy which left eight people aged between 30 and 58 dead on November 5, 2018.
“The court is not a forum, it is not seized of unworthy housing,” began to explain Me Christophe Bass, the lawyer for the trustee of 65 rue d’Aubagne, who collapsed on 5 November 2018 killing eight people. For him, the Liautard firm “did its job even if its proposals were rejected by the co-owners”.
Heaviest penalty for the owner
But for Me Pierre Ceccaldi, it is “heresy” to have prosecuted the co-owners of 65 rue d’Aubagne who had not been prosecuted during the investigation but were summoned to appear in court by civil parties. For the lawyer, it was a “trial of intent” on an alleged “greed” of his client, Xavier Cachard, owner, lawyer for the trustee and also at the time regional elected official. He certainly did not “express his feelings” during the seven weeks of hearing but it was out of “modesty”, defended Me Ceccaldi, believing that there was “nothing” to condemn him.
The prosecutor demanded for Xavier Cachard the heaviest sentence: five years in prison, three of which are closed, considering that the co-owners were “aware of the structural problems” but that they had “played for time” to “spend as late as possible and as little as possible”.
Last defense this Wednesday
Concerning the architect Richard Carta, who had appraised the building less than three weeks before its collapse, an acquittal was also requested by his lawyers who confided that the required sentence (three years including two years in prison) “stunned.”
Me Cyril Gosset was surprised that his client was being prosecuted and not the other expert, Reynald Filipputti, who had benefited from a dismissal of the case “even though he had known the building for four years”. His other Parisian lawyer, Me Cyrille Charbonneau, insisted: the role of the legal expert is not to put an end to the danger of a building but to the imminence of a danger. Certainly, he did not propose to evacuate all the tenants but in all cases, it is the town hall which decides.
On Wednesday, the closing day of the trial, Julien Ruas’s defense must plead. The latter was, at the time, deputy in charge of these issues to Mayor Jean-Claude Gaudin, who died in May and whose shadow hung over the debates. The decision of the criminal court will then be deliberated in 2025.
