On January 25, 2021 at Mas de Mingue, a series of shots broke out at Mas de Mingue. A 17-year-old boy died. The PJ’s investigation and investigation led to the indictment of nine people suspected of having been involved in the teenager’s death. The assize trial is scheduled to take place from June 24 to July 1. Hearing under close surveillance.
Chilling criminal scene. Night of January 2021 in the Mas de Mingue district, shots have just struck avenue Monseigneur Claverie, emergency police cars arrive in a few moments, banners prohibit access. The neighborhood is strangely quiet. The ferry arrives on site. Police officers armed with shotguns, some with machine guns, are distributed around the criminal scene which will prove fatal a few moments later. A magistrate from the Nîmes public prosecutor’s office is supervising the start of the investigation.
The atmosphere is heavy and cold. We learned that a young person from the neighborhood was shot and taken to hospital in critical condition, but there are indications that he will survive. On site, the emergency vehicles have disappeared and only the police officers and the prosecutor are surveying the scene in search of potential clues…
Massive hemorrhage caused by a single shot
HOCINE ROUAGDIA
The scene dates back to Monday January 25, 2021 not far from the café on the corner and not far from the post office and the old police office, closed for many years. On site we learned that a car passed in front of a building porch and that shots rang out around 8 p.m. then that a kid from the neighborhood was shot. He was downstairs with some friends. He was hit by a single bullet. It reached an artery in the pelvis and caused a significant hemorrhage despite the active intervention of emergency services and a local teenager.
Sitting on the edge of a wall, his hand bloody, he turns to the journalist and asks. “Can I leave?”… “I don’t know, ask the prosecutor who is there, he will tell you“. On the spot, the prosecutor’s representative remained on the scene, the young man was finally allowed to leave a few moments later. He was visibly in a state of shock. We later learned that his hand was stained red by the blood of the victim to whom he helped by trying to stop the bleeding. His action initially prevented the worst. But more than an hour after the operation began, the news broke. The young man has just died in the hospital. Faces darken.
The public prosecutor warns the prosecutor Eric Maurel, the Bac police officers also report to their hierarchy that the teenager is dead. It is now an investigation into murder and probably an assassination given the prepared nature of the commando operation with a car stolen for the occasion and repeated shots in the direction of a building porch. Twelve 9mm bullet cases were found at the scene. It appears that a Luger, an automatic pistol was used.
HOCINE ROUAGDIA ARCHIVES
Micro spy hidden in a USB key
The case will finally be entrusted to the SRPJ police officers and to an investigating judge from the Nîmes judicial court. Investigations gave rise to checks, hearings, cross-checking of all kinds, including forensics and sophisticated ballistic analyses. It is a titanic investigative task that the investigators carried out after thousands of pages of procedure to identify the direct or indirect participants in this fatal shooting.
The indictment order contains more than 80 pages recalling the progress of the case and accumulated clues such as an astonishing USB spy key which recorded conversations of traffickers which reveal the hidden face of Nîmes narcobandism.
The personality of the victim will be studied at length and will reveal suspicions of proximity to the world of drug trafficking with a presence at a deal point and suspicions of participation in transactions in November 2020 which were documented in a police procedure. In addition to this aspect, the Assize Court will have to determine in what circumstances a commando drove past a building porch and how a man opened fire several times.
This trial is the first recent case of homicide against a backdrop of narco-banditry which will be judged since the war of traffickers broke out in Nîmes in 2020.
“Families want the truth”
Me Dounia Hamchouch, the lawyer for the family of the young man shot dead, disputes any involvement of the victim in any trafficking and recalls that the teenager has never been convicted. “Concerning him, there is no judgment in this sense,” believes Me Hamchouch. It highlights the ordeal endured by the victim’s family in the face of the death of this teenager. She also explains that the young man’s relatives tried to leave the neighborhood and asked the authorities for help.
“But all their efforts to be relocated to another neighborhood were in vain. They even wrote to the President of the Republic,” laments the lawyer. The batonniere Me Khadija Aoudia will also be on the civil parties’ bench to speak for the victim’s family. Mr. Aoudia. “We want to give the truth to families who do not understand the crime that was perpetrated. The families want the truth.”
HR ILLUSTRATION
Nine accused in the box
In July 2023, the investigating judge ordered the indictment of nine people. Some defendants will be tried for the shooting which led to the death of young Abdelkader. Others will be tried for attempted murder, in this case on the other young man who was on the scene and who was not injured despite the opening of fire. He had not filed a complaint. Thus, less than a year after the indictment order, the Gard Assize Court will analyze under what circumstances, a car passed at full speed in front of a building in Mas de Mingue and how one of the occupants from the vehicle opened fire.
Among the accused, some will be tried for murder by complicity, namely by having provided a weapon and a vehicle; another man will be charged with murder, criminal conspiracy and attempted murder. A Nîmes man will also be tried for having set fire to a car which was used in the Mas de Mingue commando operation, another accused will be tried for having bought bulletproof vests and weapons. Beyond the role of each person, which will have to be dissected, the Assize Court will have to understand the role of each person and address the motive behind this case of murder of a 17-year-old teenager. The war between the drug trafficking clans will be at the center of the trial which will bring together the best criminal lawyers in the region (Me Bapstiste Scherrer, Hugo Ferri, Luc Abratkiewicz, Cyril Caron, Elodie Toniazzo, Camille Alliez, Karim Bouguessa, Marine Santimaria, Karim Morand- Lahouzi). The trial should in principle last six days.
