That Sunday evening, Mehdi Es Sadki is seated on the terrace of his Chicken’s Mix snack barwhen a man wearing a helmet and dressed in black aims him with a shotgun. A gunshot to the face. The 25-year-old victim died three days later in hospital. This young father is not unknown to the judicial police investigators responsible for the investigation. He was recently released from prison and already has numerous references to his criminal record, notably for drug trafficking.
Incredible escape
Very quickly the police discovered that the shooter and his accomplice were not able to escape as planned with their TMAX scooter because the two wheeler broke down. They had to push the device to hide it in a courtyard, a few hundred meters from the scene of the crime and act urgently to leave on foot, after abandoning their belongings. Numerous testimonies allowed investigators to discover the abandoned machine and the objects used by the two men, including a surgical mask, a handgun, cartridges, the remote control of the scooter and the shotgun. DNA speaks. The shooter is identified and arrested in July in Portes-Lès-Valence.
Sponsored murder
In police custody, this young man in his twenties admits that he shot Mehdi Es Sadki. This shooter is known in the Plan district, where he grew up, under the nickname “Coyote”. He has already been convicted on numerous occasions and gives the name of his accomplice, the man who was to drive the scooter during the escape. He specifies that he is a friend of the person who ordered the murder. And “Coyote” ensures having acted under threat to execute this “contract”. He had a drug debt of 40,000 euros: it had to be erased in exchange for this murder. But, when the accomplice is in turn arrested, “Coyote” recants his confession. He would later suggest that he had been threatened in detention. The alleged accomplicealso from the Plan district, is around thirty years old, has fifteen entries in his criminal record and denies involvement in murder. If we found his DNA on the abandoned objects, it is because the box where they were stored was broken into, he says.
Alleged sponsor shot dead
In two and a half years of instruction, the name of the alleged sponsor came up several times in the file. The victim’s relatives designate a 30-year-old man, known for drug trafficking, particularly in the Plan district. The restaurant manager’s girlfriend says he felt threatened in the weeks before his murder. But why these threats and this murder? This remains obscure, despite careful investigation. Some talk about a simple difference between the two men, others talk about disagreements over drug sales. But the designated principal could not be heard by the magistrates. He was in turn shot in the head on January 31, 2021.. Its big 37-year-old brother was also killed by a bullet to the head the next day, on February 1, 2021, in a parking lot in Valencia. In these two murders, it is the brother and mother of the manager of the Chicken’s Mix snack who are suspected and indicted.
Life imprisonment incurred
In this first trial of the Valencia score-settling, the shooter “Coyote” and his alleged accomplice are accused of murder in an organized gang and participation in a criminal association with a view to committing a crime. Both risk life imprisonment. The trial is being held in Lyon, before the Rhône Assize Court, because it is the JIRS, the Specialized Inter-Regional Jurisdiction, which has managed the case from the start. The trial will last until Friday.
