Strangled, the victim confides “I felt death” The accused sentenced to 15 years in prison

“I told him ‘I love you’ so he would let go of my neck.” Laetitia, 34, struggles to testify standing at the bar of the Haute-Garonne Assize Court. On the cold night of February 26, 2021, his life lasted only a few seconds.

After an alcoholic evening, Rahamany Abdou, her former companion, tried to enter the room she occupied in the accommodation and social reintegration center in the Bonnefoy district. “He didn’t accept that it was over between us. I asked him to leave, but within seconds I was on the ground, his arm around my neck, and then I lost consciousness.”

“I felt death”

Laetitia’s body was found inert by the police, following a call from a neighbor. “I felt death,” concluded the young woman, whose body showed all the marks of a deceased person.

“I was completely blown away, I couldn’t control my strength.” In the accused box, Rahamany Abdou loses his temper. Released from detention in September 2020, he only waited five months before committing a new offense. Nonchalant but also nervous, he does not hesitate to insult the attorney general and point the finger at the victim. “I never intended to kill her! »

Then staring at his former partner, he blurted out: “You know very well that I am incapable of hurting you, with everything we have been through, I could not live without you.” Laetitia leaves the room.

“I present to you a miracle. » Me Lisa Mili, lawyer for the civil party, supports the trauma suffered by her client. “She owes her life to her neighbor who witnessed an attempted murder by strangulation. A strangulation where it no longer moves. She is as if dead, and he continues to hold her down.”

The Advocate General returns to the conditions of this attempted murder of a spouse, “punishable by the same penalty as the completed offense, life imprisonment”. The spokesperson for the prosecution demonstrates point by point the materiality of the facts. “He has this awareness of strangling her and, from this very act arises the intention of homicide.” It requires a sentence of 15 years of criminal imprisonment with socio-judicial monitoring lasting 8 years.

In defense, Me Apollinaire Legros-Gimbert, takes the time to review the context in which the accused had to evolve. “A life journey marked by violence, insults and alcohol for a man who only knew the street as a way of life.” The defense lawyer insists on the alteration of discernment, noted by the expert psychiatrist with regard to his client, suffering from psychoses. But Me Legros-Gimbert is also optimistic: “Even for him, the best is possible”.

At the end of the deliberations, the jurors, two women and four men, sentenced Rahamany Abdou to a sentence of 15 years of criminal imprisonment and 8 years of socio-judicial supervision for attempted murder of a spouse.