The Assize Court sentenced Liridon Berisa, aged 25, to life imprisonment with a security sentence of 22 years. A harsh sentence for an explosive defendant.
It was a feminicide that left its mark. During the night of the 23rd to the 24th May 2021, Stéphanie Di Vincenzo fled the marital home in Hayange to walk to the police office, a few meters away. Pursued by her partner, the young woman of 22 year-old was stabbed several times in front of witnesses, who witnessed the scene or tried to help him. At the end of the fourth and final day of the murder trial of Liridon Berisa before the Moselle Assize Court, he was sentenced to life imprisonment.
You participated in my killing, I will take care of you one by one. I wrote down all of your names. Hire personal security starting today!», shouts Liridon Berisa as he is escorted to the remand center, a few seconds after the verdict was announced by the Moselle Assize Court on Friday. “The death penalty you should have taken, the death penalty!», Retorts the victim's uncle.
The 25-year-old Kosovar was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder of a spouse, with a security period of 22 years. Until the last second of his trial and throughout the four days, he threatened the civil parties or those present in the room.
The couple's neighbor, the second accused in this trial, was sentenced to 18 months in prison with a two-year probationary suspension. She had housed the accused the day after the murder, for several hours before his arrest. However, the last day of this extraordinary trial began with a calm and attentive accused, unlike the previous three days, where he had to be taken back to the jails or to a remand center, as his behavior was incompatible with holding a hearing.
The president of the Assize Court reminded him of the rules: “You listen to the requisitions of the attorney general, then the defense lawyers, and then you can express yourself.”
Forty-five minutes of threats
The accused accepted the speech of the attorney general without flinching, despite the maximum sentence required. The latter recalled the stabbings received in the street by the victim, Stéphanie Di Vincenzo, aged 22, while she was fleeing the marital home barefoot. The scene, filmed, took place before the eyes of the couple's daughter, then aged 4.
But the accused began to seethe when his lawyer, Me Arnaud Blanc spoke up to defend him. “By hearing that he is only a parasite on the part of his father and that he is nothing, we end up believing him. By seeing that human life is not worth much, we have difficulty considering that of others,” argued his lawyer, recalling his client's difficult childhood in Kosovo, before his arrival in France with his family. at the age of 7, then his placement in a home.
The accused's last words were long and laborious, forty-five minutes of ranting towards the civil parties and without any regret towards the victim. After only three hours of deliberations, the court delivered its verdict.
