Murder in Charmilles: Defense fights internment

It was an Everest that the lawyers of the Charmilles murderer took on this Thursday: avoiding internment for this 23-year-old. The day before, the Public Prosecutor had requested this definitive measure, in addition to 18 years in prison, for events that occurred in 2019: barely an adult, the defendant had stabbed a 22-year-old man in a parking lot for a trivial reason.

Achieving the climb requires dispelling “the specter of Saint-Jean” that hangs over this trial. Because, observes Me Yaël Hayat, “beyond the trial” of her client, “there is that of the repeat offense”: in 2017, while still a minor, the defendant took part in the planned assault of two men, who were left horribly disabled. She is convinced that it was this initial crime, already judged, that pushed the Prosecutor’s Office to request the boy’s internment – “the worst measure, the one that does not allow us to see the end”, summarizes Me Robert Assaël.

Her colleague believes that the day before, the prosecutor “described the boy from Saint-Jean”, a young man “with abysmal coldness”, not the one from Charmilles. By requesting 18 years and internment, “he is requesting for both crimes”. However, the juvenile justice system has already settled the Saint-Jean tragedy in 2021, inflicting 38 months in prison on its perpetrator. “And the fault was so much more serious in this case! It was the cold execution of an elaborate plan. Charmilles is something else entirely.”

The two lawyers see this as a crime of impulsiveness and reaction, “very, very far from murder.” Consequently, Me Assaël implores: “You must not compensate for this 38-month sentence by telling yourself: in Saint-Jean, he was lucky, he was a minor. You must not!”

He presents the facts from the angle of a fight, a confused scene involving several boys during which, having received a blow (with a punch), his client took out a knife “in fear. It was not a one-sided attack”, but “a scuffle that went wrong”. As a reminder, one of the defendant’s friends had turned on the victim’s group, triggering the incident and the defendant’s fatal fall.

But Mr Assaël believes that he did not want to kill, neither the first man he hit on the arm, nor the victim, who tried to intervene. He would have wanted to “defend himself”, certainly in a disproportionate way. Seen in this way, it would be “only” a murder by dolus eventualis – this case where the perpetrator accepts the consequences of his act, but does not want them.

This gesture plunged the victim’s relatives into suffering, “but a sentence punishes, reintegrates. It is never intended to repair, to compensate for the pain, notes Me Hayat. Otherwise, we would reintroduce the guillotine. Tears are not diluted in a verdict.”

Me Assaël is moved by the prosecution: “You are asking for the extreme!” He castigates “a famished indictment, of hatred and contempt. It is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” – without, according to him, any other motivation than the law of retaliation to justify the almost definitive dismissal of the young accused.

The two lawyers are therefore calling for his current version to be judged, not the one from 2017. This trial offers a rare opportunity: to rule five and a half years after the events, allowing for an assessment of a possible change. However, the defendant has traveled “an exceptional path” over the course of some 200 therapy sessions since 2019. “The evolution is breathtaking”. Me Assaël underlines “a desire to understand”, “an awareness of his problems with violence” and an appetite for change.

Certainly, “the path is not over” – the defendant himself “says it is too early to get out”. But internment would stop him dead in his tracks. “I ask you not to succumb to a sentence or a measure of elimination,” implores Me Hayat. “The grass is growing back. It must be cultivated.”