Behind each article published in the news section, each report of a legal hearing, each act of crime, conceals the story of people affected by tragedies, and of those who take action. A look back at the last twelve months.
1Human dramas
In terms of blood crimes, the year 2023 ended in a terrible manner in Miramont-de-Guyenne, with the gunshot death of Benjamin Ducamp, 28 years old. On January 4, his thirty-year-old neighbor and alleged murderer, Christiaan Galleymore, who had spent time in psychiatric hospitalization, was indicted for murder and imprisoned.
On May 28, it was near Monflanquin that two lifeless bodies were discovered. Patricia Aguanno, 62, died from a gunshot allegedly fired by her companion, Jean Moeglen, aged 89, before the latter turned the weapon against himself. Another marital drama hit the village of Saint-Romain-le-Noble in the heart of summer. Many questions still remain about this affair, kept in silence. First and foremost, the motive for Sandrine Chalumeau's action on August 4, walled in astonishment and amnesia, indicted for having fatally stabbed her husband Sébastien, aged 54, with a letter opener. years like her.
If tragedies sometimes knock near our door, those occurring thousands of kilometers away remain no less traumatic, when they affect a teenager and his family, well known in the world of rugby and beyond. Since the disappearance of the young rugby player from Stade Toulousain, Medhi Narjissi, on August 7 at Dias Beach, in South Africa, his parents have been fighting to find out the circumstances of this swimming in an unauthorized area and are counting on the justice system to identify the responsibilities of those who were responsible for their child, who competed internationally with the French under-18 team.
2Embarrassing affairs
A magistrate from Agen, former president of the Assize Court of Lot-et-Garonne, indicted in a case linked to Corsican organized crime, a notary suspected of crimes of forgery in public documents, embezzlement of public funds, breach of trust , aggravated money laundering and a Toninquais gendarme convicted for possession of a large quantity of child pornography files, the walls of institutions shook this year, when their representatives found themselves at the heart of cases compromising.
A few days before the summer holidays, a teacher from Nérac was arrested in the early morning. The teacher, who must benefit from the presumption of innocence, admitted before the investigators of the judicial police of the Paris region, responsible for the investigation, to having forced students to perform sexual acts when he was on duty in Val-de-Marne. The educational director of a holiday camp, based in Sainte-Bazeille, was also accused of invasion of privacy, possession and distribution of child pornography images, after having installed cameras in the showers. In this sordid affair, revealed in August, a municipal councilor of Seine-et-Marne, also an employee of the association organizing the stays, was indicted for rape and sexual assault on minors.
3Trials expected
If life sentences remain exceptional at the Lot-et-Garonne Assize Court, the one imposed in March on Hicham Bahloul is all the more unusual as it was requested by the accused himself. . Suffering from psychiatric disorders for many years, this neighbor of Susan Higginbotham, a British retiree who has lived in Esclottes for several years, admitted to having killed the victim. In the box, over the months, the young rugby hopeful Francis Save, sentenced to twenty years of criminal imprisonment for the assassination of Zine Bettiche in May 2021, in Agen, and Naïma Bel Allam, found guilty of a double infanticide and sentenced to fourteen years of criminal imprisonment. The mother of the girls, whose bodies were never found, appealed. Finally, seventeen years of criminal imprisonment were pronounced against Sidi Mohammed Zine El Abidine for attempted murder with a machete, in August 2021 in Marmande.
On the side of the correctional chamber, the culmination of part of the case of armed score-settling in the Agen district of Sacré-Coeur was recorded, in May, with a sentence to five years of detention.
4Files to follow
What will be the outcome of the double attempted homicide case in Boé, in which the main suspect was released on September 30? Is a hearing aimed at judging the driver responsible for the death of police officer Mélanie Lemée expected in 2025, after Yassine El Azizi's appeal to the Court of Cassation, and the abandonment of the prosecution for intentional homicide? For the victims' relatives, this wait can seem interminable, like those of Léo Soulet-Pioppo, killed in a road accident in 2021.
For the purposes of the instructions following their course, those implicated in the murders of Séverine Béziat, in Sos, and of Tiago Ribeiro, in Buzet-sur-Baïse, returned in recent months to the scene of the crime this year, in the framework of judicial reconstructions.
5Terrible accidents
This year again, lives have been lost on the roads of our department. If not all accidents were caused by risky behavior, the death of Émilie Crespo, a mother run over in front of her home by a driver traveling at high speed in a powerful rental car, shook the commune of Sainte-Livrade. The prefecture's figures, finalized in November, showed 21 people having died on the road since the start of this year, eight fewer than in 2023 over the same period.
Note this year, road and personal accidents linked to rail traffic. In our columns, elected officials sounded the alarm on December 2, particularly after the black series at the Sainte-Bazeille level crossing.
