With a relaxed air, contrasting with the seriousness of the crime with which he is accused, Saïd Abdul Karim, 38, returned to his damaged life trajectory, during this first day of hearing before the Assize Court of Yonne. For two days, the Chadian responded to the murder of a Guinean in May 2022 at the Coallia asylum seekers’ home in Vergigny. Reduced to slavery in Libya, smuggled across the Mediterranean to arrive in Europe, the accused had just seen his request for asylum refused a few months before the fatal altercation.
A frail-looking man appears behind the glass box and lowers the microphone slightly to the level of his mouth, before facing the courtyard. On his shoulders weighs a sentence of 30 years of criminal imprisonment. At 36 years old, Saïd Abdul Karim will be tried this Thursday June 13 and Friday June 14, 2024 by the Yonne Assize Court. The Chadian is accused of having stabbed Mamadou Balde, a Guinean, in the throat after an argument over a lighter, in May 2022, at the Coallia home in Vergigny, an accommodation center for asylum seekers. At the end of these two days of trial and a possible conviction, Saïd Abdul Karim hopes to “stay in France, start a family and work. Above all, work. I am not here to create problems, but sometimes you have to defend yourself “.
