Éric Guénette assures that he did not know that Keven Prévost-Bouchard was going to shoot a drug deliveryman six times on August 8, 2022 in Stoneham. And then, it was the fear of the man he describes as “a madman” who convinced him not to go to the authorities.
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Ignorance of the upcoming tragedy and fear are the main lines of the defense of Éric Guénette, who testified Friday at his trial for second-degree murder.
If in his police interrogation, the accused claimed that the expression “acting as the delivery man” used to convince him to go to the meeting with Ahchraf Thimoumi meant “killing him”, he insisted on saying the opposite on Friday.
“No, that means stealing it,” insisted the 35-year-old man several times. “I didn’t know he was going to shoot it,” he added of Keven Prévost-Bouchard, who admitted his guilt to the charge of unpremeditated murder earlier this spring
Éric Guénette, 34, is accused of the murder of Achraf Thimoumi, whose body was found on August 8, 2022 in a hidden car in Stoneham. Photo taken from Éric Guénette’s Facebook
Photo taken from FACEBOOK, ÉRIC GUÉNETTE
Beaten in prison
And why not denounce Prévost-Bouchard afterwards?
“You cannot denounce someone who is in a network of traffickers and gangs in Montreal,” said Guénette, raising this point several times. “You don’t know who he does business with.”
The proof of this danger, of this risk, would have materialized after the arrest of the two men for the murder in October 2022. After a few months of detention, Guénette would have been beaten by three fellow prisoners at the request of Keven Prévost- Bouchard he said.
“One was holding the cell door and it started, with punches and kicks. There was blood everywhere,” said the accused, emotionally. “They were yelling at me that it was because you talked too much.”
Not a first armed robbery
The trip to Stoneham by Guénette and Prévost-Bouchard was not the duo’s first criminal epic. The first admitted during his testimony that in the weeks preceding the murder of Achraf Thimoumi, he found himself involved in another drug theft with Prévost-Bouchard, in Chicoutimi.
Keven Prevost-Bouchard, convicted on March 27, 2024 for the second degree murder of Achraf Thimoumi, a 20-year-old Moroccan national. The victim was shot 6 times during a drug robbery on August 8, 2022, in Stoneham Photo credit: Taken from Facebook Keven Prevost-Bouchard
Taken from Keven Prevost-Bouchard’s Facebook
“I arrived, he gave me the gun and told me to go wait in the bathroom with another guy,” testified Éric Guénette, saying that this time too, he had been “embark” without his knowledge.
But after Chicoutimi, why keep the link with Keven Prévost-Bouchard asked the Crown prosecutor, Me Fabien Villemaire. Why did you agree to join him in Quebec?
Murder weapon from the murder of Achraf Thimoumi, which occurred on Chemin des Familles, in Stoneham, August 8, 2022 Photo credit: Provided by the court
Photo provided by the court
“Because he’s a boyfriend,” the accused first replied, before adding that you can’t say no to someone who is involved in this type of environment.
“Look at the war going on right now. People are having their ears and fingers ripped off. We don’t know who we are dealing with,” insisted Guénette.
His lawyer, Me Louis Belliard, declared his evidence closed late Friday afternoon and will begin his pleadings next Monday. The crown will then present its arguments to the jury, which will have to decide the fate of the 35-year-old man.
