The client of Me Ofelia Avagian, Mohamed Bakkali, is acquitted of the facts. This is how the Brussels Assize Court ruled on the guilt of the accused on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday in a conclusion that was stormy to say the least. The families of the accused addressed and even insulted each other with the victim’s relatives.
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“At least our son is within four walls! “, launches Dardour’s relatives to the Benali family (23 years old). The main accused, whom the popular jury considers to be the author of the shots which cost the young man’s life, ends his trial as he began: speaking of everyone’s mothers in colorful terms, Dardour is taken on board under the cries of his loved ones. It is almost three o’clock in the morning, the debates will continue the next day.
“These killers”
Mohamed-Amine Dardour will not take his place in the accused box this Wednesday, for the debates concerning the sentence to be imposed on him, as well as on Youssef Jeddi, considered a co-perpetrator of the facts. “What you decided yesterday cannot be combined with lenient sentences. No one would understand it, neither loved ones, nor me, nor civil society and nor, perhaps, yourself“, declares in the preamble the Advocate General Thierry Moreau.
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For the prosecution, there are no mitigating circumstances to consider for “these killers“, explains the attorney general. He therefore requires life imprisonment for Dardour and Jeddi. “To kill one person, they were willing to kill two others.“
“A kid”
“There is Justice and what is right“, begins Me Eskenazi. The criminal lawyer recalls that Jeddi, whom he describes as “a kid“, “a follower“didn’t shoot that night.”He will have to take responsibility now but we are all the consequences of our life paths and I hope you will hear it, it could also have been your kid“, he explains again.
Me Laura Pinilla continues with the young age of Youssef Jeddi at the time, 19 years old. More or less, it depended on the Youth Court, she recalls. “But we are coming to tell you today that being young at the time of the facts is not a mitigating circumstance when there is a whole parallel legal world reserved for them.“, continues the criminal lawyer. “Perpetuity is the abandonment of all redemption, of all reintegration, it is the end of the second chance“, declares Me Pinilla, recalling the conditions of detention in Belgium and the difficulty of obtaining conditional release.
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The floor is given to the lawyers mandated by Mohamed-Amine Dardour to speak in his absence, Me De Vlaemynck and Me Bosmans. “There are mechanisms that are much more effective than life imprisonment, where victims are put at the same table as perpetrators.“, breathes Me Bosmans in reference to the restorative justice program, as exists in the Plat Pays. “Mohamed-Amine is a kid who missed his trial, missed the point. Whatever the facts you attribute to him, he is someone who is self-destructive. Profiles of this type of dealer, themselves cocaine consumers, are not common“, she pleads, exposing the school harassment he allegedly suffered.
The jury entered into deliberations.
