It’s only a matter of hours. Five young people, tried since November 7 by the Gironde Assize Court, after the murder of a sixty-year-old from Floirac, kicked to death in a room of his residence, will be determined this Friday, November 15 on their legal fate.
On April 10, 2021, the lifeless body of Pierre Sourgen was found, his face crushed and bloody. He died from this “major facial collision”. Only the accused, just out of adolescence at the time, know what really happened. A young woman is answering today for failure to assist a person in danger (read elsewhere) and Romain Barros, designated as having a central role, is on trial for murder.
A law course
“The issue of this trial is the legal qualification”, poses Me Laury Costes, one of Vincent Lehman’s lawyers. Murder? This is the thesis of the attorney general who wants to judge the four as co-perpetrators because he cannot establish which kick, in the avalanche received, was fatal. Complicity to murder? This is the reason for the dismissal of the investigating judge. The blows resulting in death without intention of causing it? Willful violence? This was the assessment of the prosecution.
“Knocking a man to the ground to regain a little testosterone and show that you are a good man, it’s odious”
Offering jurors a crash course in law, Me Costes opts for intentional violence. She refuses to “put everyone in the same basket.” Because if we don’t know who did what, we know who caused the death: it was Romain Barros’ crushing blow.”
The facts disgust her. “Knocking a man to the ground to regain some testosterone and show that you are a good man is odious. » She wants her client, head bowed and hands folded in prayer throughout the hearing, to be convicted. But not as co-author. “The conviction must be a ticket for change,” adds Me Maeva Bosh who wants the court to take into account the efforts made by their client since his release from pre-trial detention.
Me Alexandre Novion is not there to “deceive” the jurors. “To judge is to know the protagonists well,” he recalls. The lawyer defends Bilal Hamdan. “He was 18 years old at the time of the incident. Romain Barros, the one who joined his group of friends, was 21. That’s a considerable amount of time. As Romain Gary said, he didn’t know how to keep the world at bay. He was trained. »
Group effect
Me Géraldine Rodriguez, who defends Rayan Daliaoui, author of a brush which caused the victim to fall to the ground, assures that her client was “overtaken by the murderous madness of Romain Barros”. “He has an unassertive personality, he joins the group without really wanting to. The brush was not the cause of death. »
“It’s easy to put all the blame on him because he has a record and he’s impulsive.”
Me Julie Elduayen is ironic. She defends Romain Barros, without filter, “the monster, the one who dragged into his murderous madness young people who had no other choice but to stay and participate, by giving a kick here, a blow foot that way, otherwise he would have turned his rage against them. The fear he inspires doesn’t exist, it’s a group of friends who come to squat in a place.”
The lawyer, who judges the investigation directed against her client, has a dig for each co-accused. They pushed his client down, so that he would drag them down with him. Me Rémy Guillot, also lawyer for Romain Barros, deplores that “the specter” of his client “hangs over the case.
“It’s easy to put all the blame on him because he has a record and he’s impulsive. It’s one for all and all against one. » Thirty years were required against Romain Barros. The lawyer offers a trip back in time to the court. “Imagine all the events you have experienced over the last thirty years, which you will erase from his life. Thirty years, even if that were the victim’s life expectancy, would amount to Talion’s law. This is not justice. »
“Fear moves faster than consciousness”
She blames herself, should have, couldn’t, didn’t know. The things left unsaid, the posture erased in the audience, past the penitent head, speak more than his timid trickle of voice. Judged for failure to assist a person in danger, the young girl in the gang feels responsible. “This does not mean that she is guilty of the alleged acts,” says her lawyer, M.e Benedicte Imperial. “She did not voluntarily refrain from providing assistance,” assures the lawyer. “She came back so that Romain Barros would not finish the victim, she tried to pull him by the t-shirt. » But she was no match. “She was scared and fear moves faster than awareness. » Kicked out of her home after the events, she got up, moved forward, took a civil service exam. “But if she is convicted, all her efforts will be for naught. Finished. »
