Thirteen people were placed in police custody on Tuesday as part of the investigation into a double murder committed at the end of October in Pont-Saint-Esprit (Gard) following an operation which mobilized 240 gendarmes, indicated the Nîmes parquet.
Two people were shot dead and two others seriously injured on the night of October 28 to 29 in front of the terrace of a café in this town located in the Rhône valley, Nîmes prosecutor Cécile Gensac said at the time. .
Group of hooded individuals
“The two people who died were aged 24 and 25. One of them was known to the courts for violations of drug legislation and pimping. The second was unknown to the justice services. The shots came from a group of hooded individuals, who fired directly at the people present. before leaving “on board a vehicle”, she added. Six months after the events, investigators from the Nîmes research section “made several arrests” Tuesday morning, Ms. Gensac said in a press release.
“Thirteen people were placed in police custody and will have to explain the offenses of murder by an organized gang, attempted murder by an organized gang, carrying, transport, possession of category A and B weapons, damage by an organized gang. ‘goods by dangerous means for people as well as participation in a criminal association with a view to committing a crime’she detailed.
The magistrate does not specify where the arrests took place but indicates that “240 gendarmerie soldiers were mobilized (…), in particular the gendarmes of the gendarmerie group of Gard, Vaucluse, Bouches-du-Rhône, Rhône, the GIGN intervention force, two GIGN branches , two specialized gendarmerie protection platoons, as well as four dog teams..
According to a Source close to the investigation who requested anonymity, “most of the arrests took place in Vaucluse, particularly in a city in Orange”. In her press release, the prosecutor also explains that these police custody “can last four days in the case of offenses linked to organized crime” and “the investigating magistrate and the deputy prosecutor responsible for organized crime were present on the scene”.
