Like the prosecution before him, the investigating judge in charge of the case concerning the death of Mélanie Lemée, hit by a reckless driver trying to flee a checkpoint on July 4, 2020 in Port-Sainte-Marie, dismissed the charge of murder against Yassine El Azizi, in favor of willful violence against a person in a position of public authority, resulting in death without the intention of causing it.
Clearly, the Tonneinquais, now aged 30 and placed under judicial supervision since July 2023, remains liable to a heavy sentence of criminal imprisonment and a trial before an assize court. A legal horizon to which his lawyers cannot resolve, supporting involuntary manslaughter as an appropriate prosecution for their client. In this sense, masters Victor Casellas and Édouard Martial appealed this decision on June 21.
Legal debate
A legal debate should therefore begin around the notion of intentional violence, during a forthcoming hearing before the Court of Appeal. The investigating judge, in his indictment order, refines this question, considering that the intention, if not murderous, remains valid by the driver’s intimidation of the police officers posted near the roadblock, set up on the D813. And whose disastrous outcome, for police officer Mélanie Lemée, is the consequence of aggressive driving on the part of Yassine El Azizi, also brought before the courts for transporting, possessing and using narcotics, refusing to comply and driving without a license.
If the investigating magistrate agrees that the driver’s intention was to flee the police, his dangerous road maneuvers are sufficient, according to him, to characterize deliberate decisions, taken with determination, going beyond the scope of involuntary homicide. In its indictment, the public prosecutor had already supported this position, arguing for a “clear act of violence”, despite the possibility that the Tonneinquais had not seen the gendarme at the time of the accident.
Lack of certainty
For the defense, intentional violence can only be held when there is an intention to harm physical integrity. However, according to lawyers Victor Casellas and Édouard Martial, relying on the statements of their client, those of the witnesses and the expert reports filed in the case, the lack of certainty as to the exact position of the victim at the time of the accident, and the choice of their client, on the day of the events, to specifically bypass the road neutralization device, demonstrate, conversely, that his act cannot be qualified as intentional violence.
Consequently, the defense rejects the charge of intentional violence resulting in death without the intention of causing it, and argues for a reclassification as aggravated involuntary manslaughter, to which Yassine El Azizi, a repeat offender and who should benefit from the presumption of innocence at this stage, should answer before the criminal court.
