He has already been sentenced to twenty years in prison for this murder in his country of origin, Algeria, in 2015. Redouane Khoutir, 66, will therefore not be present at his trial in France, which begins this Tuesday at the court Rhône Assizes, in Lyon, for having killed Foued Guessoum, a brewery employee in Villeurbanne, for a pack of cigarettes, in 2009.
“The Guessoum family wants justice to be done in France and for Algeria to draw the consequences,” said Master David Metaxas to Progress. She wants a dignified trial but also a general mobilization to finally be heard. On the civil parties’ bench, there is a 14-year-old child who did not know his father. He will be there to understand. »
Already convicted of killing a police officer in 1984
This evening in early September, around 11 p.m., a customer entered this brasserie in the Gratte-Ciel district of Villeurbanne and asked for a pack of cigarettes. The cash register being closed, the sale was refused by a colleague of the cleaning employee. The customer, angry, then insulted and attacked the waitress before Foued Guessoum invited her to go out.
The young woman’s companion, Redouane Khoutir, 50 years old at the time, then entered to intervene and take his friend home. Before returning a few minutes later, to ask, in turn, for a pack of cigarettes. He was asked to leave by Foued Guessoum, then returned a third time, armed with a pistol, and shot the 35-year-old employee in the heart.
At the time, the perpetrator was on parole after serving a twenty-year prison sentence for killing a police officer during a hold-up in 1984. He then fled to Algeria. Targeted by an international arrest warrant, he was arrested in Annaba in 2013, then sentenced there, the country not extraditing its nationals.
The verdict in this French trial is expected at the end of the day, this Tuesday.
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